Author's Note: I'm unsatisfied with this ending but I can't figure out why. I was going to have a sort of Q&A follow-up with Nick, Brass and Roger, but decided against it. I generally have some sort of discussion with the killer in the end (Mindy and Sofia, Queen of Spades, Vera and Greg, Collateral Damage, even Sara and Danny in a way or Nick and Dr. Norris from Silent Night). So there's no follow-up with what happens to our villain. Let's just assume he goes to jail and that's that. Anyways, this is the end. I'm not sure what my next project will be at all, but I suppose you'll find out soon enough.
Chapter Eighteen: Scars
One Week Later
Sara shrugged off her robe and looked at herself in the mirror for a long time. She ran her fingers through her hair. She turned left and looked at her profile. She pouted. She sucked in her stomach and straightened her back. She frowned, sighed, and slouched. She closed her eyes and rubbed her arms, suddenly feeling embarrassed, even though she was alone.
She stooped and lifted the terrycloth robe from the ground before wrapping herself in it again. It was fuzzier and warmer than her thin, silk one, which was still in evidence. But even if it wasn't, she would have been afraid to wear it. She took her cane, which was leaning against the wall, and limped down the hall to her room, where she made a point to close the door behind her.
She got dressed. At first, she put on a V-neck top, but the bruise crept into view and she decided to trade it in for a turtleneck. But then she looked at herself in the mirror. She looked horrible in turtlenecks. She took off the shirt and looked at the abandoned V-neck and cursed her newfound shame. She snatched the V-neck and put it on before looking at herself in the mirror again. It was nothing some makeup couldn't fix. She hoped.
She shook out her hair and tried to smile before applying concealer.
When she was done, she snatched her cane and headed for her first day of work since in a week.
When she limped into the lab, Grissom's face lit up the room.
"Hey," he said to her softly. "You look good."
She beamed at him. "I feel good," she told him.
He handed her a file. "419 on Brooklyn. Can you handle it?"
She cocked an eyebrow at him and took the file. "I can handle more than that."
He smiled. "Greg's going with you. He's been waiting for you in the lounge, I think, joking with Warrick and Nick."
She leaned on her cane and saluted him with the file in hand. "I'm on it," she said, and turned to find Greg.
She found him roughhousing with Nick in the lounge with Warrick playing referee. Greg wriggled out of the headlock Nick had him in and hit him playfully in the stomach when Nick stopped and looked up at Sara in the door and he turned around, winded, but with the widest grin on his face Sara had seen in weeks.
"Hey!" he said breathlessly, skipping over to her. "Where've you been, I've been ready to go ages ago, and then this guy comes along—" He threw his thumb over his shoulder at Nick, who gave her a half-smile and waved. "— and tries to tell me that Timothy Dalton was the best Bond when it was clearly Connery."
"Uh huh," Sara said, nodding slowly but smiling nonetheless.
His eyebrows shot up. "You ready to go?"
She smirked at his enthusiasm. "Sure," she said, happy to see him as an eager puppy dog again. She nodded down the hall. "Let's get out of here."
She clutched her cane and started off down the hall with Greg skipping at her side. "So," he began. "How've you been?"
"Pretty good," she replied. "Bored."
"You're back a little early," Greg noted. "Didn't Riza tell you—"
"I know what she told me," Sara said calmly. "She recommended I stay off the leg, and that I get back to my usual routine as fast as possible." She looked at Greg. "Didn't she tell you the same thing?"
"My injuries were a bit more extensive…" Greg's eyes trailed down her neck. "Oh, Sara…"
She stopped. "What?"
He looked away from her and rolled his eyes, suddenly awkward. "Er, it's not like I was looking, OK, but I saw something out of the corner of my eye and…"
She looked down at her chest and saw the unsightly plumb tendrils of the bruise creeping out from the neckline of her shirt. She tugged at it and turned away from Greg.
"I, um… I'll meet you in the car," she said, her back to him.
He didn't move. "It's OK," he said.
"To wear your scars on your sleeve?" she barked back at him.
His jaw snapped shut. She sighed and stopped tugging at her shirt before turning to him, noting the faded wound still visible on his neck. "I… I'm sorry, Greg," she said. "I'm acting like…"
"You're acting like me," he said with a sly smirk.
She laughed. "Yeah," she said. "I kind of am, aren't I?"
He nodded. "I get it," he said, with such sincerity that she didn't even doubt it for a moment.
"Thank God for you," she said, shaking her head in awe.
His eyes darted left, then right before he stepped towards her. "You know, I may not have a bruise, like you do. But I know what it's like to be marked. You're not a victim, Sara, you're a survivor."
"Is that how you think of it?" she asked.
"It's how I've come to think of it, yeah," Greg said. "And eventually… you'll see it that way too. Everyone else already does."
She blushed and looked away, tugging at the neckline of her shirt. "I… I have to go."
"It's a badge of courage not a—"
"Now you've just crossed the line from cute to cheesy," Sara said quickly and he laughed as he rolled his eyes. "I'll just be a minute. Please?"
He nodded, slowly. "OK," he said.
She headed immediately to the bathroom and once again found herself face to face with herself. The scar that traversed her left cheek was bad enough, but bearable because the nature of that attack wasn't so personal. She looked like a battered spouse and the idea drove her insane. So she leaned her cane against the wall, opened her purse and dug through it until she found the concealer and pulled her shirt aside, painting a nice, beige coat over the unsightly bruise. It became almost obsessive as she couldn't seem to make it go away completely, and she scrubbed at it with the tissue, Lady Macbeth in all her bloody glory.
And then the door opened, and Sara stopped, as if she was doing something immoral. The bottle of concealer fell to the tile with a crash and spilled onto the floor. She looked up at the newcomer with guilty, terrified eyes.
Catherine said nothing, but simply met Sara's gaze, her lips straight and her eyes soft. She approached Sara slowly and took some paper towels from the dispenser before crouching to clean up the mess her friend had made.
"You don't have to do that," Sara said at last.
Catherine looked up at her and smiled. She lifted the bottle of concealer and wiped it down before handing it to Sara again. "It's salvageable," she said. "You still have a lot left in there. But you won't have any left if you keep piling it on like you're doing." She straightened up and put a gentle hand on Sara's forearm, who looked down at where her colleague was touching her before looking up into her kind blue eyes.
"I just don't…" She rolled her eyes and turned away from Catherine, gripping the sink with her hands as she stared at herself in the mirror. "I should have worn the turtleneck."
"You were brave to wear this," Catherine told her, watching Sara in the mirror as well.
"If I was so brave to wear it, why does it bother me so much?"
"That's what bravery is," Catherine replied. "You should know that."
Sara sighed and ran her hands through her hair. "I just didn't… want him to still have any control over me. I didn't want him to dictate what I wear, or how I act."
Catherine nodded. "Well look at Greg," she said.
Sara turned her head to give Catherine a quizzical look. "Greg?"
Catherine smiled. "Isn't he the best inspiration?" she asked. "I've never seen him so happy."
"You don't know if it's real," Sara pointed out, and Catherine's face fell.
"It seems real enough for him," she replied.
Sara shook her head. "He says it gets better…"
"It does."
Sara looked up at Catherine again and this time, a smile overtook her face as well. "Right," she said. "It's not like you're new to this sort of thing either, are you?"
Catherine reached out and took Sara's hand in hers. "Bruises fade," she said. "Scars heal."
"Life goes on," Sara said flatly.
"Yeah," Catherine returned. "Life goes on."
The blonde CSI turned to leave and just reached the door when Sara called after her. "How did you know?" she called. "About Greg, I mean."
Catherine turned to her. "Warrick told me," she said.
"How did Warrick know?" Sara asked.
"Warrick's smart," Catherine replied. "Sometimes, smarter than the rest of us. Nick didn't want to speculate because he was afraid of what he'd find. Me, I speculated like crazy, always avoiding the only thing that made sense because…" She closed her eyes and sighed. "Because it was Greg. And you can convince yourself of anything if you have to. But when Warrick said it, when he suggested it, I…" As if she was suddenly cold, Catherine began to rub her arms and look up at the ceiling, blinking back tears. "I couldn't avoid it anymore. Not for long. And then, there was you…"
"And then there was me," Sara repeated after Catherine trailed off.
Catherine looked at Sara, her blue eyes sparkling in the harsh florescent light of the bathroom. "You'll see," she said. "Soon, we'll be OK again."
Sara was aware of what Catherine must have been going through. "There was nothing you could have done—"
"I would have liked to have been trusted in the first place," Catherine interrupted. "I could have worked the case—"
"No better than Grissom and I could have," Sara returned.
Catherine looked down and sighed. "You're right," she said.
"I'm sorry…" Sara began, "if we hurt you…"
Catherine laughed and tossed her hair back. "You didn't hurt me," she said. "Schwartz did."
"I guess in a way, he got all of us, didn't he?" Sara asked.
Catherine didn't reply. "I have to go," she said. And before Sara could stop her, she was out the door.
After she left, Sara looked at her reflection in the mirror again for a long time.
The door opened and closed and Greg looked over at Sara, his hands on the wheel. She didn't say a word, she simply stared out of the windshield, her chest rising and falling steadily as she breathed.
"Did you fix it?" he asked.
"No," she said loudly, turning to look at him and smiling.
He was visibly confused. "But I thought you wanted to…"
"We all have our scars," she said. "And they heal. Life goes on. Now drive."
He grinned and nodded before turning the key in the ignition. "Let's get to work."