CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Horizon
Genre(s): Angst, Drama
Rating: K+
Character(s): Sara Sidle
Pairing(s): Grissom/Sara
Spoilers: 5.13 Nesting Dolls
Summary: Separating the present from the past isn't always as easy as it might seem.
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"Sara!"
About to head out to my first scene of the night, a DB with company, I'm in the corridor when I hear Archie Johnson call my name, and my response is to spin around on the heel of my boot and fix him with a curious stare. I don't have any evidence with him or that needs to be with him, right now, and it's rare for our A/V tech to yell down the hallway to me, or, in fact, to anyone else.
"Archie!" I flash him a quick smile. "You got something for me?" He shakes his head, his long hair whipping slightly, teeth gleaming in the light he stands under as I walk back toward him. "I don't have anything for you, but Grissom just asked me if I could catch you before you left. Seems there was a phone call for you. He's waiting in his office."
I arch an eyebrow. A call for me made to Grissom's office? This strikes me somehow as very odd; usually calls for specific members of night shift are made to their cell phones if a message can't be left with Reception, and I check to make sure mine is working as I thank Archie and head over to take the call. It seems to be working just fine, no problem with the signal, and a twist of worry begins to wind itself up inside my stomach. Who has something to say that's so important they didn't call my cell or couldn't leave me a message?
A flashback of talking to Griss shortly after my suspension hits me, and I wonder ever so briefly whether my mother may have been paroled early. I shake the thought away, and reaching his office door, barely ajar, I rap on it gently.
---
"Come in," he calls out. The door creaks a little as I push it open.
"Sounds like that needs oiling," I comment with the same old twist of the corner of my mouth that makes a half-smile.
He doesn't heed my comment, instead letting the file he is holding fall to the top of his desk and slipping off his glasses with one hand. He looks up at me, and the expression in his eyes is so grave that the knot in my stomach pulls in a little closer. It's the same look he had during that first conversation the day I came here, the moment I asked after the welfare of his dying CSI. I bite my lower lip.
"Grissom?"
He blinks, slowly. "Sara... take a seat." His voice is as serious as the way he looks, and I absently note the familiar gesture of his rubbing his thumb lightly against the underside of his ring finger. He only does that when something has unsettled him. I obey, dropping into the chair in front of his desk and pushing a small pile of papers forward to give myself some room to rest my hands on the surface. He says nothing.
I glance up at him, and his eyes are distant, unfocused. "What did you want?" I ask him. I'm still not completely comfortable with this, being back here, and I'm definitely not comfortable with not knowing why I'm on the carpet.
"I had a call from the San Francisco PD for you this afternoon," he began, nervously increasing the pressure of thumb on finger so that the underneath of his knuckle turns white at every brushing contact. I watch it for a second, flicking my gaze back to him after only a moment.
"And?"
He sighs. "And, they were contacted by someone who wanted to get in touch with you. Apparently the only address they had for you was in the apartment building where you lived in San Francisco before you moved here. Francesca Dornet from their CSI department wants you to call her. She told me she has some bad news for you."
He looks vaguely guilty, and I ask almost before I wonder. "Did she tell you what it was about?"
"No," he answers, giving me that tiny headshake that shows his lack of information on a subject - something I don't see very often in our work, but it's there. I sigh and hitch my feet up to hook onto the crossbar beneath the seat.
"Did she give you a contact number for me to get in touch with her?"
He nods, passing the scrap of lined paper with the notation over the desk to me.
"I'll page Sofia and tell her you'll catch her up." That's right, remind me I have to work with Sofia Curtis tonight. I'd just as soon avoid it if I could, but since the shift changes... The knot in my abdomen tightens as my thoughts turn back to how my life has gone bad in so many ways since that day, and again I wonder if the news has to do with her.
Nothing like having butterflies in the stomach to make you even more nervous. My momentary silence has struck him as I sit staring down at the digits scrawled on paper, and he gets up from his seat, catching my attention again.
"I'll give you some privacy," he allows, before leaving his own office for me and moving to close the door behind him in an uncharacteristic display of-- something else.
---
I don't wait long, stretching my hand out to grab up the cradle of his telephone even as I hear the faint click signifying the closing of the door. Glancing at the number, I look back to the number pad and dial it in ten rapid digit taps. I suck my lower lip between my teeth again as the ringing sounds against my ear. It's answered after four rings.
"Dornet."
"Francesca?" I remember her from my days with the SFPD, but her voice seems a little rougher, her accent fainter. I never really got on with her-- a short, dark girl from the Deep South, she was new shortly before I left for Las Vegas, and we didn't have much to do with each other at the time. It's been a good five years.
"Sara Sidle, now would that be you?" She sounds glad to hear from me, but the feeling in her voice seems dampened. Probably the bad news. I wish I knew what it was. However, not too long to wait now before I will.
"That's me," I confirm briefly. "Pleasantries aside, what's up?" I'm not going to waste time exchanging 'how are yous' when I know there's something bigger to discover. I want to know what the negative is now to start dealing with it immediately.
"Cut straight to the chase," she comments shortly before hurrying on, probably remembering my lack of patience.
"The NYPD contacted us this morning, trying to trace you. Apparently they have a suspicious death up there, and they found your name and address in the dead guy's wallet. They have no idea who he is, you're the only named person they could find with any connection with him, and they need an ID if you can give it. That's the gen of it, anyway." Francesca pauses for breath as I try to take it all in. New York? I don't recall knowing any men in the Big Apple well enough for them to have my name and address, and the only person I can think of who would have my address in California--
I suck in a deep breath as that thought impacts, unable to reject the idea immediately. Francesca evidently takes my silence to mean I'm a captive audience, and she continues to talk as I barely register what she's saying.
No. I close my eyes so tight they almost hurt. There is no damned way this can be true.
---
She has given me the number, and I think up the time difference before I dial it. I'll get the night shift in New York.
unfinished