csi fic: the bottom of the ocean
SUMMARY: Post-ep for Weeping Willows. If the world was an ocean then she has sunk to its bottom. The questions that emerges, then, is what happens next?
RATING: PG-13
CHARACTERS: Catherine, Gil
PAIRING: GC Friendship, perhaps hints of GCR, depending on how you want to take it.
*
She stands in the middle of the hallway, backlit by the harsh lights of the lab. She watches as he disappears from sight, her mouth forming a silent ‘o’ from what he has just said. She just stands there frozen, for several long moments, unlike Greg comes by and asks if she’s all right. She numbly replies yes.
Greg nods. He may not believe her but he lets her get away with it. Of course, ever since she was given the Swing Shift, there’s been a distance so it may not be that Greg’s letting her get away with a lie. It may honestly be that he believes her when she says that she’s fine. She’s not sure which is worse. She suspects that neither option is very pleasant.
She gets her feet to move, heels clicking softly against the floor as she walks to the locker room. She gathers her things, moving like a robot. She feels like a robot. She certainty doesn’t feel like she’s alive. Maybe she feels a bit like the Frankenstein monster, an outcast. That’s a bit too pitying, she thinks to herself. She forces the thought from her mind and closes her locker door.
Abandoning the lab, she starts to head home. What she really wants to do is go to the bar and get drunk, to numb everything even further. She tells herself that she has a daughter at home who she hasn’t seen all week. It isn’t until she plays up to her dark house that she remembers her daughter is at a sleepover.
The house is empty when she enters. It’s cold and there’s an aching void that she doesn’t wish to deal with. She drops her bag on the floor before handing to the kitchen. She knows she should eat and go to sleep. But the house is too big and empty for her to be here by herself. She doesn’t want to be alone.
It’s so easy to call the cab.
The cab arrives and she gives the dark-skinned man the address of a bar. They arrive several minutes later and she pays the man, stepping up into the cool night air. There’s a bitter wind and it hits her, chilling her. She’ll wash away the chill with alcohol.
There’s no music in this bar. It’s merely a place to go to get drunk. Some of the occupants are in couples or little groups but most are alone, choosing to do as she is. Drink alone and drink hard. She should know better than this but the temptation is just too strong. She goes to the bar and orders the first of what she knows will be many drinks.
Drinking has never solved any problems, she knows, but there’s something alluring about alcohol. She knows all of the dangers. She knows how too many good cops and too many good CSIs have lost their way trying to find redemption at the bottle of the bottle. Given what happened to her last time she drank alone, she knows she really shouldn’t be here. But she is and that’s that.
She wants the alcohol to dull the pain inside of her. Being supervisor hasn’t turned out to be what she expected. She and Gil are too often at odds. She misses their old friendship. Her relationships with Nick and Warrick are strained, all because she was once just their co-worker but now she’s their boss. Sara is outright disrespectful to her, and she never gets to see Greg, even though she was the one to first give him a chance with his CSI training. Everything that she once had is gone. She doesn’t remember there being this much transition trouble when Gil took over the nightshift from Brass. Maybe it’s because her and Gil are too very different people. People seem to respect his skills. Too often she’s seen as the pretty one, who got where she was via her looks.
The cocktail is cold as it slides down her thought. The alcohol burns her throat but she ignores the sensation. The glass hits the countertop with a thud. The bartender comes over and refills her glass. She nods at him, thanking him without speaking. She studies the glass, the liquid that only causes problems. Alcohol is never a solution but she’s falling into the trap of using alcohol. It’s easier to sleep when she’s drunk. It’s easier to forget that her daughter hates her, that she has no friends outside of work and no friends inside of work. It’s easier to be so many things when she’s no longer sober.
She knows she’ll hate herself in the morning but that thought doesn’t stop her. She raises the glass to her mouth. Instead of drowning the drink, she sips it this time. The alcohol still burns but she welcomes the burn. At the very least, it’s a reminder that she really is still living, that she can still feel.
The bar begins to get hazy on her third drink. She hadn’t eaten anything before she started drinking. She doesn’t even remember the last time that she ate. The alcohol is going straight to her head. She’s going to feel awful tomorrow but right now she’s entering that numbed state she desperately wanted to feel tonight.
As she gets tipsy, Gil’s words play around in her head. It’s not intentional. It’s a side-effect of the alcohol. Still, all she can think about is how Gil responded when she asked if it was a crime to want a little human contact. ‘I guess that’s why I don’t go out,’ he had said, so simply, like that was an answer. His solution, she thinks, is no better than hers. His just looks better, because he won’t get a suspect that he accidentally made out with the night before. Neither is healthy.
She stares morosely at her drink. She hadn’t wanted to drink, not earlier. Earlier she had wanted Gil to have breakfast or lunch or whatever meal it was with her. She wanted him to be sympathetic for her plight and offer her comfort in the silent way that he has. She never expected that he would shoot her down.
But now that she thinks about it, she realizes that Gil shooting her down wasn’t so unexpected. Six months ago he would have gladly spent the time with her. Or, if not gladly, he would have done it because they’ve been friends for years. Somewhere along the line they ceased to be those friends. She thinks it started when she was promoted to Swing supervisor and given Nick and Warrick. Warrick was always Gil’s favorite and Nicky has his own special place in Gil’s heart. Matters weren’t helped when she wanted Sara fired. So she and Gil drifted and now she has no one.
Her eyes feel wet when she starts on her fourth drink. She brings a hand to her eyes and realizes that she’s crying. She doesn’t even remember when she started crying. All she knows is that she is crying and that wasn’t supposed to happen. The alcohol was supposed to dull her pain, her senses. It was supposed to make her immune. She wants to be immune. She wants to be painless and the robot that Gil can be. She wants to be able to survive on no human contact but she doesn’t know how. And so she winds up in a bar, drowning her sorrows, fully realizing that there’s no salvation at the bottom of the bottle but she’s still here, still drinking. She won’t find redemption. She’ll just find shame.
The glass is wet feeling when she picks it up. She gulps down the remaining liquid, not even wincing at the burn. The bartender comes over and lifts her purse. She wants to protest but she’s too far gone. She just stares at the countertop as he makes a call. He returns her purse and says the cab will be here in five minutes. He’s already given them her address. All she has to do is get into the bright yellow cab when it arrives.
She nods solemnly. She’s had enough to drink, she supposes. She’ll probably pass at the moment her head hits the pillow. She rises on unsteady feet, a newborn colt just getting its legs, after a few minutes. She takes her purse and heads outside, wobbling as she walks. The cab’s already there so she climbs in.
He drives her home, taking her cash when she arrives. She walks up the front drive, keys clutched in her shaky hands. On her doorstep is a surprise.
Gil just sits there, black clothing blending into the black night sky. He rises when he catches sight of her. She tries to read his face but it’s blank. Another mask for Gil, she thinks bitterly. He’s so good at hiding behind masks.
He takes her elbow when she gets close enough, removing her keys from her hands. He opens the door and leads her instead. Then he helps her to her bedroom. The room is dark when they enter. Gil goes to her nightstand to turn on the small lamp that sits there. He moves around the room, quickly and efficiently.
She just stands in the middle of the room, like a little lost girl, as Gil goes to the dresser and collects a set of pyjamas. He tells her to change in a gentle voice before leaving the room to offer her privacy. It doesn’t matter that she has no dignity left. He stills wants to give her that sense of privacy. She doesn’t know whether to hug him or hit him. She might just do both, but later, when she isn’t so tired and worn-out and beaten-down.
The door to her room creaks open five minutes later. She’s sitting on the bed, clad in the cotton pyjamas Gil grabbed for her. He enters, carrying a glass of water and a small bottle of Tylenol. He walks slowly to her bed, sitting down next to her. The bed moans in protest from the added weight. He hands her the glass and two pills. She feels like a little child as she swallows the pills with the water Gil has brought her. And, like a little child, she’s waiting for the lecture about how she’s being reckless.
The expected lecture doesn’t come. He takes the empty glass from her and sets it on the nightstand. Then he forces her to lie down. Forced isn’t really the right word. It’s more like he places his hands on her shoulders and gets her to lie on her side. She faces the window. Once she’s lying down, she expects him to leave but he doesn’t. Instead, she hears him toe of his shoes before he wraps his hands around her waist, his front pressed intimately against her back.
It’s too much for her and the tears that had stopped during the cab ride rise afresh to her eyes. At the bar her tears were silent but here, in her home with Gil next to her, the tears come harder and she sobs in a gut-wrenching manner. She shakes with the sobs, trembling as the tears come and come with no stop in sight.
Gil just holds her as she cries. He makes shushing sounds and promises that everything will be all right. She hears him apologize too, which is unusual for Gil but she thinks it’s because he’s seeing just how far she’s sunk. If the world was an ocean then she has sunk to its bottom. And the current’s too strong for her to swim to the surface successfully, at least by herself. Maybe Gil realizes this. Maybe that’s why he showed up at her house. She doesn’t know for sure but it sounds nice and she thinks that maybe she likes that.
Eventually she cries herself out. Her sobs slow, dying out completely in a short amount of time. Her body ceases to shake, no longer trembling from the force of her sobs. Gil continues to hold, continues to shush her, to say platitudes that she never expected of him. Perhaps she had to hit the ocean bottom before Gil could show any human emotion. Whatever the reason, she’s grateful for his presence.
She’s tired of being alone. She’s tired of numbing the pain with alcohol. She’s just so tired of everything that her life has become.
As Gil holds her, she drifts off into sleep, dreaming of the old days when the five of them would go to the diner and eat pancakes after shift. She misses those days but knows that they can’t go back. They can only go forward.
Just before she succumbs to sleep, she hears Gil whisper that everything will be okay. She wants to tell him that he shouldn’t make promises he might not be able to keep but the words die in her throat. She wants the promise. So instead of speaking she sleeps.
When she wakes the next morning, Gil is still there and she thinks that maybe it was a promise that he could keep. As the sun shines through her curtains, hallowing them in soft golden light, she thinks that maybe she won’t need alcohol to dull her pain tonight. Her world won’t magically repair itself overnight but maybe she’ll be able to sleep without alcohol tonight.
And that would be a very good start.
THE END
RATING: PG-13
CHARACTERS: Catherine, Gil
PAIRING: GC Friendship, perhaps hints of GCR, depending on how you want to take it.
*
She stands in the middle of the hallway, backlit by the harsh lights of the lab. She watches as he disappears from sight, her mouth forming a silent ‘o’ from what he has just said. She just stands there frozen, for several long moments, unlike Greg comes by and asks if she’s all right. She numbly replies yes.
Greg nods. He may not believe her but he lets her get away with it. Of course, ever since she was given the Swing Shift, there’s been a distance so it may not be that Greg’s letting her get away with a lie. It may honestly be that he believes her when she says that she’s fine. She’s not sure which is worse. She suspects that neither option is very pleasant.
She gets her feet to move, heels clicking softly against the floor as she walks to the locker room. She gathers her things, moving like a robot. She feels like a robot. She certainty doesn’t feel like she’s alive. Maybe she feels a bit like the Frankenstein monster, an outcast. That’s a bit too pitying, she thinks to herself. She forces the thought from her mind and closes her locker door.
Abandoning the lab, she starts to head home. What she really wants to do is go to the bar and get drunk, to numb everything even further. She tells herself that she has a daughter at home who she hasn’t seen all week. It isn’t until she plays up to her dark house that she remembers her daughter is at a sleepover.
The house is empty when she enters. It’s cold and there’s an aching void that she doesn’t wish to deal with. She drops her bag on the floor before handing to the kitchen. She knows she should eat and go to sleep. But the house is too big and empty for her to be here by herself. She doesn’t want to be alone.
It’s so easy to call the cab.
The cab arrives and she gives the dark-skinned man the address of a bar. They arrive several minutes later and she pays the man, stepping up into the cool night air. There’s a bitter wind and it hits her, chilling her. She’ll wash away the chill with alcohol.
There’s no music in this bar. It’s merely a place to go to get drunk. Some of the occupants are in couples or little groups but most are alone, choosing to do as she is. Drink alone and drink hard. She should know better than this but the temptation is just too strong. She goes to the bar and orders the first of what she knows will be many drinks.
Drinking has never solved any problems, she knows, but there’s something alluring about alcohol. She knows all of the dangers. She knows how too many good cops and too many good CSIs have lost their way trying to find redemption at the bottle of the bottle. Given what happened to her last time she drank alone, she knows she really shouldn’t be here. But she is and that’s that.
She wants the alcohol to dull the pain inside of her. Being supervisor hasn’t turned out to be what she expected. She and Gil are too often at odds. She misses their old friendship. Her relationships with Nick and Warrick are strained, all because she was once just their co-worker but now she’s their boss. Sara is outright disrespectful to her, and she never gets to see Greg, even though she was the one to first give him a chance with his CSI training. Everything that she once had is gone. She doesn’t remember there being this much transition trouble when Gil took over the nightshift from Brass. Maybe it’s because her and Gil are too very different people. People seem to respect his skills. Too often she’s seen as the pretty one, who got where she was via her looks.
The cocktail is cold as it slides down her thought. The alcohol burns her throat but she ignores the sensation. The glass hits the countertop with a thud. The bartender comes over and refills her glass. She nods at him, thanking him without speaking. She studies the glass, the liquid that only causes problems. Alcohol is never a solution but she’s falling into the trap of using alcohol. It’s easier to sleep when she’s drunk. It’s easier to forget that her daughter hates her, that she has no friends outside of work and no friends inside of work. It’s easier to be so many things when she’s no longer sober.
She knows she’ll hate herself in the morning but that thought doesn’t stop her. She raises the glass to her mouth. Instead of drowning the drink, she sips it this time. The alcohol still burns but she welcomes the burn. At the very least, it’s a reminder that she really is still living, that she can still feel.
The bar begins to get hazy on her third drink. She hadn’t eaten anything before she started drinking. She doesn’t even remember the last time that she ate. The alcohol is going straight to her head. She’s going to feel awful tomorrow but right now she’s entering that numbed state she desperately wanted to feel tonight.
As she gets tipsy, Gil’s words play around in her head. It’s not intentional. It’s a side-effect of the alcohol. Still, all she can think about is how Gil responded when she asked if it was a crime to want a little human contact. ‘I guess that’s why I don’t go out,’ he had said, so simply, like that was an answer. His solution, she thinks, is no better than hers. His just looks better, because he won’t get a suspect that he accidentally made out with the night before. Neither is healthy.
She stares morosely at her drink. She hadn’t wanted to drink, not earlier. Earlier she had wanted Gil to have breakfast or lunch or whatever meal it was with her. She wanted him to be sympathetic for her plight and offer her comfort in the silent way that he has. She never expected that he would shoot her down.
But now that she thinks about it, she realizes that Gil shooting her down wasn’t so unexpected. Six months ago he would have gladly spent the time with her. Or, if not gladly, he would have done it because they’ve been friends for years. Somewhere along the line they ceased to be those friends. She thinks it started when she was promoted to Swing supervisor and given Nick and Warrick. Warrick was always Gil’s favorite and Nicky has his own special place in Gil’s heart. Matters weren’t helped when she wanted Sara fired. So she and Gil drifted and now she has no one.
Her eyes feel wet when she starts on her fourth drink. She brings a hand to her eyes and realizes that she’s crying. She doesn’t even remember when she started crying. All she knows is that she is crying and that wasn’t supposed to happen. The alcohol was supposed to dull her pain, her senses. It was supposed to make her immune. She wants to be immune. She wants to be painless and the robot that Gil can be. She wants to be able to survive on no human contact but she doesn’t know how. And so she winds up in a bar, drowning her sorrows, fully realizing that there’s no salvation at the bottom of the bottle but she’s still here, still drinking. She won’t find redemption. She’ll just find shame.
The glass is wet feeling when she picks it up. She gulps down the remaining liquid, not even wincing at the burn. The bartender comes over and lifts her purse. She wants to protest but she’s too far gone. She just stares at the countertop as he makes a call. He returns her purse and says the cab will be here in five minutes. He’s already given them her address. All she has to do is get into the bright yellow cab when it arrives.
She nods solemnly. She’s had enough to drink, she supposes. She’ll probably pass at the moment her head hits the pillow. She rises on unsteady feet, a newborn colt just getting its legs, after a few minutes. She takes her purse and heads outside, wobbling as she walks. The cab’s already there so she climbs in.
He drives her home, taking her cash when she arrives. She walks up the front drive, keys clutched in her shaky hands. On her doorstep is a surprise.
Gil just sits there, black clothing blending into the black night sky. He rises when he catches sight of her. She tries to read his face but it’s blank. Another mask for Gil, she thinks bitterly. He’s so good at hiding behind masks.
He takes her elbow when she gets close enough, removing her keys from her hands. He opens the door and leads her instead. Then he helps her to her bedroom. The room is dark when they enter. Gil goes to her nightstand to turn on the small lamp that sits there. He moves around the room, quickly and efficiently.
She just stands in the middle of the room, like a little lost girl, as Gil goes to the dresser and collects a set of pyjamas. He tells her to change in a gentle voice before leaving the room to offer her privacy. It doesn’t matter that she has no dignity left. He stills wants to give her that sense of privacy. She doesn’t know whether to hug him or hit him. She might just do both, but later, when she isn’t so tired and worn-out and beaten-down.
The door to her room creaks open five minutes later. She’s sitting on the bed, clad in the cotton pyjamas Gil grabbed for her. He enters, carrying a glass of water and a small bottle of Tylenol. He walks slowly to her bed, sitting down next to her. The bed moans in protest from the added weight. He hands her the glass and two pills. She feels like a little child as she swallows the pills with the water Gil has brought her. And, like a little child, she’s waiting for the lecture about how she’s being reckless.
The expected lecture doesn’t come. He takes the empty glass from her and sets it on the nightstand. Then he forces her to lie down. Forced isn’t really the right word. It’s more like he places his hands on her shoulders and gets her to lie on her side. She faces the window. Once she’s lying down, she expects him to leave but he doesn’t. Instead, she hears him toe of his shoes before he wraps his hands around her waist, his front pressed intimately against her back.
It’s too much for her and the tears that had stopped during the cab ride rise afresh to her eyes. At the bar her tears were silent but here, in her home with Gil next to her, the tears come harder and she sobs in a gut-wrenching manner. She shakes with the sobs, trembling as the tears come and come with no stop in sight.
Gil just holds her as she cries. He makes shushing sounds and promises that everything will be all right. She hears him apologize too, which is unusual for Gil but she thinks it’s because he’s seeing just how far she’s sunk. If the world was an ocean then she has sunk to its bottom. And the current’s too strong for her to swim to the surface successfully, at least by herself. Maybe Gil realizes this. Maybe that’s why he showed up at her house. She doesn’t know for sure but it sounds nice and she thinks that maybe she likes that.
Eventually she cries herself out. Her sobs slow, dying out completely in a short amount of time. Her body ceases to shake, no longer trembling from the force of her sobs. Gil continues to hold, continues to shush her, to say platitudes that she never expected of him. Perhaps she had to hit the ocean bottom before Gil could show any human emotion. Whatever the reason, she’s grateful for his presence.
She’s tired of being alone. She’s tired of numbing the pain with alcohol. She’s just so tired of everything that her life has become.
As Gil holds her, she drifts off into sleep, dreaming of the old days when the five of them would go to the diner and eat pancakes after shift. She misses those days but knows that they can’t go back. They can only go forward.
Just before she succumbs to sleep, she hears Gil whisper that everything will be okay. She wants to tell him that he shouldn’t make promises he might not be able to keep but the words die in her throat. She wants the promise. So instead of speaking she sleeps.
When she wakes the next morning, Gil is still there and she thinks that maybe it was a promise that he could keep. As the sun shines through her curtains, hallowing them in soft golden light, she thinks that maybe she won’t need alcohol to dull her pain tonight. Her world won’t magically repair itself overnight but maybe she’ll be able to sleep without alcohol tonight.
And that would be a very good start.
THE END