148A/N: Woohoo! Go me for getting another chapter of this up this fast! This chapter is kinda running and gunning it (hahaha, you'll find that ironic after you read this chapter) during classes when I should've been taking notes for my tests. Oh well. Nothing to learn in those classes anymore. So, here you go!
Disclaimer: Hehehehe, if you think I own CSI, I think you were drinking too much Guinness on St. Patrick's Day.
Chapter 27: I Need You
Grissom's POV:
There was a certain dull quality to the house whenever Sara wasn't around, and while a year ago, I might've appreciated the deflated and calm atmosphere, I could barely stand it now. I longed for that life that Sara brought to it whenever she was around.
Stop it, Gil... You're just a step above pathetic, at best. My old conscience scorned me.
Setting the forensic magazine down before me on the coffee table, I peered up at the clock. It was nearly ten forty-five now. Where are those two?
It seemed to be staged perfectly on cue that the thuds and mumbles resonated up the stairs and through the door. I was only steps away from opening the door when the pleading voice of Brooke's beckoned me to let her in. But I was nowhere near prepared for the sight I received when I responded.
"What the Hell happened?" I questioned as I took the slack Sara Sidle who was being carried on the back of her foster sister.
Brooke followed me as I carried Sara down the hall to our bedroom, a heavy staccato element in her voice that couldn't get several words stringed together to make an coherent sentence. Even subconsciously, Sara had her arms wrapped around her mid-section for a sense of security and she buried her delicate face now marred with bruises and scratches into my chest.
Sliding in sideways into the bedroom, I placed Sara down on the bed before laying a blanket on top of her. Whirling in a storm of fury back towards Brooke, I was nose-to-nose with the woman as I spoke.
"What happened to Sara?" The strictness of my voice left me even speechless.
"I don't know! All I know was that she'd left to go to the bathroom, ended out in the alleyway behind the club and when I was walking past looking for her, she was getting cornered by a gang of punks!" Running her nimble fingers through her hair, Brooke moved back and began to lightly pace the room. "I tried to get to her as fast as I could but then they turned on me and one had me in the air by my neck while someone took a swing at Sara and hit her!" Knuckles white and with her cheeks flushed red, even through her already dark complexion, I saw the hysteria gradually transform into full fledged anger. Just like I knew the woman possessed. "They got her in the stomach too... And then Taj got them all off our backs and I got her home as soon as I could, but she passed out in the car."
"Why didn't you take her to the hospital?" I continued to chide, keeping in mind the areas that Brooke mentioned took the beating. "She could have a concussion!"
"You think I don't know that?!" Now it was time for Brooke to turn on me as she stepped up to my face and took me by the collar. "You think I don't know what the possibilities of her injuries are?! News flash, both her and I have sustained more injuries in our lifetimes to know what the Hell they are!"
Taking a hold of her wrists, I slowly pried them from my shirt and lowered them to her side. I could still feel my blood pressure rising as I turned back to look at Sara.
Now isn't the time to lose control, Gil. My mind coached as I turned back to the pacing Brooke Waters. As soon as I was about to offer some words to either apologize for snapping or words of comfort, they weren't heard as Brooke set off again.
"I swear to God on our sister's grave that I'm gonna find whoever did this and I'm gonna kill them. You might as well arrest me now, Gil, because when I figure..." Her words slowed down with every word as I could practically see the wheels in her mind turning. Suddenly, and with a new sense of realization, she cursed loud enough to rouse Sara from her sleep.
With Brooke biting her knuckle, she retreated from the room, giving the doorframe a solid punch as she carried herself down the hall to the living room. Crouching by the bed and by Sara's side, I waited for her eyes to fully open. Brown irises and black pupils took a moment to focus on me, but a faint smile rose to her lips when she caught sight of me. Mumbling a greeting, I pushed past a greeting of my own in reply.
"Griss... I'm sorry. I tried to get them all away from me, but there were too many of them..." She claimed as she reached for my hand.
Taking hers, I rubbed soft circles into the back of her hand and across the knuckles that were slightly puffed up. "But you fought back and you're alive... That's all that matters." I smiled. "Hold on, I'll go get you a wet wash-cloth and some ice. Just rest here."
Holding onto her hand for as long as I could, I left for the kitchen and bathroom. Exiting the hallway, I found Brooke was once again attached to my collar.
"Where does that bitch live?" There was a somewhat determined and fully outraged look within her bi-colored eyes.
"Who?" I questioned as I shook her off again.
"That bitch of an ex-girlfriend of yours! Lady Heather!" Brooke seethed as she slammed her fists down on the counter of the breakfast island. "Where does she live and what's her phone number?"
Stopping as I reached for the freezer's door handle, I swiveled back to Brooke with inquiring eyes. "Why?"
"Because I wanna have damn milk and cookies with the broad, WHY THE HELL DO YOU THINK?!" Brooke shot out sarcastically. "That broad made a hit on Sara! C'mon now, I know you're not stupid!"
"What leads you to suspect her besides the facts that she doesn't like Sara?"
"Oh, I don't know..." Brooke mocked actual consideration to thought as she grabbed her chin. "Maybe the fact that I got the chance to 'interview' one of the people that was in the gang... He told me that they were ordered to smack Sara around because she had stolen the person's boyfriend."
Leaning up against the refrigerator now, I could barely contain the information. Lady Heather? Ordering a hired hit? After that night of stopping her from committing murder, there wasn't a doubt in my mind that Heather wouldn't mind doing things herself if it were that personal. And this, indeed, was personal to Heather. The feeling settled within me that there was much more too it than Brooke was letting on. Something huge. Something that exceeded this situation.
But with her "Boss's" identity unknown to her, I would possibly never know if this hunch of mine was fact or fiction.
Is now an appropriate time to tell her? My mind asked itself. She's practically your left and right hand in that case, yet she doesn't so much as have a single clue that standing before her is the so-called "Mastermind" to her "assignment".
Shaking myself from my thoughts, I turned around to rummage through the freezer. Moving on from the kitchen, Brooke's eyes and body followed me with pure confusion. "What? All of a sudden it doesn't matter? It doesn't matter that I may know who ordered people to beat up Sara?"
Stopping halfway down the hall, I turned abruptly back to her. "Don't tell me it doesn't matter Brooke. You've provided the information and the evidence, now I must figure a way to handle this."
"I'll give you a way to handle 'this'. Let me go and knock the broad upside the head, that's how!" Brooke growled as she kept in tow with me as I entered the bathroom to retrieve a wet wash-cloth and a dry one to wrap the icepack in.
Just as quickly exiting the bathroom as I had entered it, I returned to the bedroom as I ignored Brooke statement. Setting both the wash cloth and icepack on the bedside table, I went to the closet to retrieve my field kit. Regardless of the fact that she was fine and not at the hospital, there was still a chance that I could find one or all of the people that attacked her. Taking swabs of both her inflamed knuckle and both sides of her cheeks all the while receiving eye rolls from the "victim", I replaced all three swabs back into my kit, making a quick mental note to drop those off to Mia tomorrow when I arrived at work.
Replacing the swabs with the wash-cloth, I dabbed the wash-cloth across Sara's face, cleaning up the small traces of blood that was left and I also paid attention to the hand she'd obviously hit with. Placing the wrapped up icepack over her swelling cheek, I held it there as her own hand raised up and covered mine.
"Please don't tell me you're going to waste Mia's time with those swabs." Sara pleaded with me.
"Fine, then I'll get Greg to do it before shift. He should still have the DNA lab tech still somewhere inside him, no matter how much he denies it." I bantered softly which thankfully heard me an equally soft chuckle. "And besides, it's not a waste if we find the guys that did this."
"Yeah and in the meantime, I'm gonna just quietly find that skank Heather and beat her to a pulp, okay with you two?" Brooke interrupted, unkindly reminding me that it was not just Sara and myself in the room.
Standing now, I turned to face the hot-headed and hot-blooded counterpart of Sara's younger days. "Brooke, just think of what you just said and the consequences that could come with it."
"I'm seeing nothing but good." Brooke replied after a moment.
"You're not going anywhere..." Sighing out of exasperation, I kept tabs of how far away Brooke was from the door and how close I was to the door.
"You're tryna tell me that I can't go after the person that hurt my sister and your girlfriend?" Her eyes stared at me, wide and incredulous. "Am I hearing you right?"
"You're hearing me perfectly, Brooke, because I know you have a tendency towards violence when there are other ways to address this situation." My eyes fled to her feet which were slowly shuffling toward the door. Under normal circumstances, I most likely wouldn't have notice this, but now it seemed to be the most obvious thing about her. "Why don't you sit down and just cool off?"
And just as Brooke was about to argue back with me, Sara sat up from the bed and aided me in taming the beast. "Brooklyn Marie Waters, sit down now."
The sharp edges in her eyes softened as Brooke slowly obeyed Sara's orders, slinking over toward the bed like a child scorned by her Mother. Taking residence beside Sara, Brooke sat there almost pitifully. Giving Sara a look for a long moment, she nodded me off while mouthing, "Give us a minute."
Leaving the room, I closed the door shut though it opened another door within my mind as I continued to assess the situation.
Brooke's POV:
Sometimes, Sara could be as strict as Scotty or as gentle as Jazz, our foster parents. Right now, I was pegging her in between the two.
"Brooke... You can't just go off and want to beat everyone that messes with you or someone close to you." Sara chided me something that struck me as maternal. "I don't know why I'm giving you this life lesson when you're thirty, because it's not like when we were kids and everyone on the block was calling you 'Oreo' and me 'Cracker'. It's not the same."
Mumbling an, "I know" on a single breath, I lowered my head. "It's just... I gotta protect you and this is the only way I know how, y'know?"
Sara began chuckling at me, catching me off guard. "Brooke, we're in our thirties... I may have needed some protecting when I first came to live with you in New York, but I learned a lot from you back then. I don't need you protecting me like when we were kids. I have myself for that, and now Grissom. You don't have to be my guardian, you just have to be my friend and sister."
"You needed me tonight..." I slipped out against what my brain was telling me.
"You're right." Sara blew out a sigh. "I did need you. I probably would've gotten worse than a few bruises and a couple of scratches. But you don't need to go beyond past the point when I'm no longer in danger. That's where you get in trouble. And I don't need you getting in trouble."
Rubbing and massaging the back of my neck, I felt the heat rise.
"So, no more death threats on Heather?" I couldn't tell if Sara was asking a question or giving a statement. It was more like a combination of the two.
"Fine, I'll leave her breathing for now." I grunted out a hesitant response.
I felt the playful slap on my arm which made me turn at her with the brightest smile I could muster. It became easier to smile when one of her own showed through.
The Norman Rockwell picture perfect moment was interrupted by my phone going off. I had picked it up on my way out, finding it discarded at the fence. With the number blocked, I answered the phone with a less than polite greeting.
"Now now now... Is that anyway to treat someone who's got your dear old Taj at gunpoint?" The voice taunted from the other line.
"Who the Hell is this?" I asked, standing up immediately.
"If you want Taj back, get down to the old abandoned police station towards the outskirts of city in twenty minutes. If you don't, well... Don't count on him coming home for a late night quickie." My cheeks flared at the implications this unknown guy was making, pissing me off and embarrassing me in one clean strike.
"You asshole, I swear, when I..." But before I could finish the sentence, all I heard was the call ended beep with a message following it.
'Call ended: 00:14'
Snapping the phone shut, I slammed it as hard as I could to the floor before turning around in place which my hands through my hair. Get rid of one problem, get two more...
"Brooke, who was that?" Sara asked, now standing and laying a hand on my shoulder.
"Some prick has got Taj down at some abandoned police station at gunpoint. They told me to get down there in twenty minutes or else he's dead, pretty much." I reported in as much a calmed voice as I could provide. "I don't even know where the Hell this police station is... Sara, I can't lose him."
Sara's eyes seemed to search the room before she tossed the icepack onto the bed where she'd once laid. Rummaging through the drawer in the bedside table, she produced a pen and pad of paper, along with a gun in a holster, from her findings and scribbled something quick down on it before tossing it beside the icepack. It seemed only a split second later that she directed me out the window of the bedroom. I gave no objection as Sara snuck me and herself out of the house and as we stalked stealthily toward my car.
"You shouldn't be going with me Sara... Grissom's gonna go psycho on my ass if I get you endangered again." I warned as I started up the Skyline.
"What did I just tell you, Brooke? Be my sister and my friend and my guardian only when it calls for it." Sara tossed me a smile before I drove off.
Sara's POV:
A chill ran up and down my spine as we stepped out of the Nissan Skyline. The building before us was run down, but you could still make out the old print along the top.
'Las Vegas Police Department'
Taj was somewhere in there and being held hostage. Feeling along my waistline for the gun, I removed it from the holster, checking the clip once more. For the past six years, I'd never needed to use this issued gun, but the operation of the gun was not foreign to me. Much like riding a bike, I have never forgotten.
"You ready for this?" Brooke asked, the wind carrying the words a short distance over to my ears.
"Ready." I nodded.
My eyes shifted to every possible angle, surveying the land and watching for any unsuspected "surprises". But under the cloak of darkness, I might as well have been blind and searching in the day time for anything. The rustling of the nearby planted trees accompanied the sounds of our shoes hitting the pavement as we trekked toward the front door. My blood ran cold as we drew closer and closer, realizing everything was going far too smoothly for it to be deemed "realistic". The grip on my Glock 19 grew tighter and clammier as my pace slowed down, though Brooke kept walking faster. My mind willed her to slow down but it was no use. Any and all telepathic channels were closed with her mind being infiltrated with thoughts of Taj.
We were no less than a handful of steps away from the door when I felt two arms grab me from behind, leaping out of the bush and knock the gun out of my hand. The hand muffled my yells to warn Brooke as I noticed she grabbed for the door just as a gunman unveiled himself from behind a thick trunked tree, weilding a 9 mm. Turning around to investigate the commotion, the double doors swung open with a man waiting behind them to pull Brooke into a full Nelson choke hold. My eyes watched in horror as the man behind the door held Brooke in place as the gunman discharged five bullets into her chest all at once.
Brooke's chest jerked violently with each bullet that penetrated her as she slowly slid to the floor, her face contorted with pain. I screamed against the man's hand that held me back as I watched her slowly fall to the ground after the man holding her released his hold on her. Being through aside and into a bush, all three men made a run for it. Scrambling for my gun numbly, I aimed for the men's legs and only succeeded in getting two while the other disappeared down the road.
Knowing either men weren't going anywhere with a bullet in their legs, I crawled up the stairs to Brooke's side. I could see she was still breathing, no matter how difficult the task was becoming. The positioning of the bullet wounds didn't truly frighten me until I came across the fifth wound that was dead center on her heart. Shaking hands reached down her shirt and pulled out the identical dog tag chain, the pendent bent with a bullet mark now.
"One lucky son-of-a-bitch..." Brooke sputtered as she dropped both the pendent and her arm.
"Brooke, just hang on... I'm getting the paramedics out here." I said as I reached for my cellphone in my pocket.
"Taj...? Taj...!" Brooke weakly called out, her head facing inside the dark building.
Muffled screams came from close inside. Sending the call to 911, I wandered inside, gun drawn and crouched low for protection. Jumping over the counter of the reception desk, I came face to face with a tied up Taj. After freeing him from his rope bindings, no more was said between us as he jumped the counter and went to Brooke's side.
Watching the scene while leaning up against the desk, I sighed in relief when I heard a voice over the phone. "911, what's your emergency?"
"I need assistance out at the old police station outside the city immediately. Three down and one escaped." I explained in the most neutral voice I could use at the moment. "Police and paramedics please."
I cut off the connection before the woman could even tell me to stay on the line. Watching Brooke and Taj still, I speed dialed Grissom at the last moment.
"Honey... I need you."
TBC...
A/N2: Bet you weren't expecting this, huh? Will she die or will she live? Just because one bullet missed a vital part of her, does that mean the other four will not kill her? Only time, and reviews, will tell. Haha.. Well, night y'all...
Peace out, one love,
MC New York