Title: Still Here

Fandom: CSI

Pairing: Sara/Lockwood

Rating: PG

Word Count: 917

Prompt: 37 Sound

Spoilers: Built to Kill, Inside the Box

Notes: An AU to an AU, A Fool for Lesser Things.

It’s the absence of sound that alerts Sara to the fact that all is not well with the man beside her. Over the last three years, she’s become very attuned to all of Cyrus’s habits, and considering she’s still able to survive on little sleep, she knows his nocturnal tendencies very well indeed. She knows how his breathing should sound, can recognise the twitch of his hand as it moves suddenly against the bedclothes, hear the rustle and creak as he shifts around.

The fact that he normally can’t get close enough to her, holds her close against him, while tonight he’s lying on his back, stiff as a board, not touching her, is another clue.

When she can’t take it any more, she rolls over in bed to face him, propping herself up on one elbow, reaching over with the other to snap on the bedside light. “I know you’re not asleep,” she tells him when he doesn’t open his eyes. “You want to talk about it?”

She knows, even before he opens his eyes and glares at her, that the last thing he wants to do is talk about it. He’s hardly said a word to her since Grissom called them, ruining what had been a perfectly lovely night in. She’d taken the call, had felt the blood draining from her face as she’d listened, and Cyrus’s hand at her back had brought her back to reality, enough to tell him what had happened.

He’d listened with a face like thunder, then turned around and walked out the front door.

She’d waited up for him, and when he’d come back, he’d still said nothing to her, simply taken her by the hand, brought her to their bedroom and made love to her with an intensity that almost frightened her.

She’d thought he’d talk to her then, but he hadn’t, had just lain there and waited for sleep to come. It hadn’t though, for either of them.

“What’s there to talk about?” His first words to her are bitten out through a clenched jaw, anger and impatience in every syllable. “It’s over.”

“I thought that’s what you wanted.” Because God knows, it’s what she’s wanted for three long years now, and while she never would have wanted it to happen this way, she can’t put her hand on her heart and swear that she’s not sorry that justice finally caught up with Sam Braun. Although she is sorry for Catherine, for what she saw, for what she’s been through and what she’s going through, she’s not sorry that Sam Braun is dead, and she’s not going to lose any sleep over the fact that he was murdered.

She almost lost far more than sleep over Sam Braun, and if she can help it, she never wants to think of him again.

“I wanted that son of a bitch to rot in jail,” Cyrus tells her now. “Shooting was too good for him.”

Sara sighs, lies down so that her head rests on his chest, his heart making a reassuring thumping sound under her ear. “You can’t let it affect you like this,” she tells him, because it’s not the first time they’ve been here. “It’s over… but we’re still here.”

There’s a long pause where his fingers find the skin of her back, linger over a particular place. “You could have died Sara,” he whispers. “Because of him, because of what he did…”

“But I didn’t. Cyrus, I didn’t.” She props herself up slightly, kisses his lips. “I’m here… and so are you.” Because as much as he’s woken up in the last three years, dreaming that she died in the First Monument Bank robbery, she’s woken up an equal number of times, dreaming that he did. “No matter what Sam Braun planned, no matter how many technicalities his lawyers brought up… we’re still here.”

His hands reach up to find her skin, one lingering on her cheek, the other threading through her hair, and he pulls her to him, lips meeting with enough passion to devour them both. She meets his passion with her own, hears herself moan into his mouth…

…Then hears him moan for a different reason as an all-too-familiar sound invades the bedroom.

She rolls off him, flopping onto her back with a rueful smile. “Your turn,” she tells him, at the same time as he says, “I’ll go.”

Despite the interruption, despite the conversation, despite the night’s events, it’s still easy for her to smile as she watches him pad towards the bedroom door, hears the murmur of his voice from the room next door. Smiling is even easier when she hears him returning, still murmuring, because that can only mean one thing.

Sure enough, when he appears at the door, their five month old daughter is in his arms, already falling back asleep, and she knows that she should admonish him, that one of her rules is that the baby sleeps in her crib, not their bed, but tonight of all nights, she doesn’t care about that rule.

Because when Cyrus lies down, when the baby is lying between them, and his hand is holding hers, she knows exactly how much they have to be thankful for.

“We’re still here,” she reminds him, and this time, he smiles.

“We’re still here,” he agrees, leaning over to kiss her before he settles back and closes his eyes.

In seconds, his breathing evens out, and Sara knows that he is fast asleep.