Title: The Start of the World
Fandom: CSI/Highlander
Pairing: Sara Sidle/Sam (OMC)
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,350
Prompt: 76 Rebirth
Pins and needles flood every part of her body, and she awakes with a start and a gasp, finds herself sitting bolt upright in bed, heart pounding, head spinning. No, she quickly realises, not spinning, buzzing. It sounds as if she’s in the middle of a beehive, and she instinctively claps her hands over her ears, a manoeuvre that intensifies rather than obstructs the sound.
Then suddenly it is gone, and she is aware that she’s not alone, that someone is sitting on the bed beside her, that their hands are on her wrists, that they are saying her name.
She opens her eyes – when had she shut them? – and finds herself staring into a face she recognises, one she’s known since she was a teenager, one she’s been in love with off and on for almost as long. “Sam?” she manages, allowing him to help her drop her hands, and she’s met with a smile that’s somewhat more uncertain than the ones she’s used to.
His first words do nothing to solve her confusion. “Sara, it’s ok.”
She shakes her head, trying to clear it, trying to remember. In so doing, she looks around the room, finds no help there. It’s a generic guest room, double bed, chest of drawers, wardrobe in the corner, curtains drawn against the fading sun. “Where am I?” she asks, and it seems like it’s a long time before he answers. “Sam, what happened?”
His eyes are sober and serious when they meet hers. “Don’t you remember?”
“I remember going to work…” She also remembers what she was doing before she went to work, how she’d damn near been late, a worrying occurrence since Sam had come back into her life. “I was with Greg, we were at a scene…” She stops then, because it all starts coming back to her.
Greg in the kitchen, her in the living room beside it.
Checking carefully for evidence, turning quickly when she heard Greg’s panicked cry.
An explosion of pain in her back, the sensation of falling, the sound of running feet and a door slamming.
Greg using language that she’d never heard him use before, the sound of more voices, Brass’s among them, the sense of pandemonium all around.
Warmth, being pulled against somebody’s body, looking up into Greg’s hazy face, trying to focus on what he was saying, trying to read his lips, failing.
Then blackness.
She can feel the colour draining from her face, and she’s very cold all of a sudden. “Sam, what happened?”
She’s said it before, and now, as then, his eyes are very serious. “You know what happened.”
She does. She died, just like he died in
her arms five years before on a
“You mean… I’m like you?”
When Sam nods slowly, she falls back against the pillow, stunned. She’s lived with his secret for a long time, since she was thirteen years old and he was her English teacher. She’s heard his stories, has seen the way he lives, and she’s seen him do battle with other Immortals, swords and sparks flying, lightning splitting the sky. It’s always been his world, for a time it was their world, but the notion that now it’s her world too is a little too hard to wrap her head around.
“I wanted to tell you Sara… so many times… but I couldn’t… I couldn’t do that to you.”
His soft words, barely more than a whisper, shock her speech back. “You knew?”
“I could sense it in you… just like I can sense other Immortals… that’s what you heard when you woke up, by the way… that buzzing sound?”
She’s heard him talk of The Presence, isn’t too keen on the thought of having to hear that buzzing every time he walks into a room, but she’s still hung up on the fact that he knew what was in store for her. “You knew? And you didn’t tell me?”
Sam fixes her with a sad stare. “Would you have wanted to know? Really?”
Put so plainly, it’s hard to deny, and all she can do is shake her head. Instead, she fixes on something more easily to grasp. “Where are we?”
“At my house.”
A new voice has her head spinning again as the world tilts off its axis. “Doc Robbins?”
The older man smiles at her as he enters the room, leaning heavily on his walking stick. “Hello Sara,” he says, before adding, “I know this must come as a surprise to you…”
It’s such an understatement that all Sara can do is laugh. “You knew too? But you’re not…” She knew that much, because there had been no buzzing in her ear before he walked in.
“No, I’m not an Immortal… I’m a Watcher,” he says, lifting one sleeve up to expose a tattoo on his wrist. “And I’ve had my eye on you for a while.”
“When Grissom called me to tell me about you… I knew what I had to do,” Sam tells her. “I went to the morgue… asked to see you. I knew they’d let me… and I was trying to figure out how to get you out of there when Doc Robbins told me what he was.” The two men share a knowing half-smile and Sara makes a mental note to get the details off Sam later.
“Let’s just say,” says Doc Robbins, “That being a Watcher and a coroner can come in handy sometimes. No-one queried Sam taking charge of the details, I signed the necessary paperwork, and, long story short, you ended up here.”
Sara shudders at the mention of “the details,” knowing that they mean her funeral. “So… everyone thinks I’m dead.”
Robbins’s face is very serious. “You are dead, Sara… to them anyway. I’m sorry.” He clears his throat, shifts somewhat awkwardly, finding the top of his walking stick very interesting. “I’ve enjoyed working with you… and I’m going to miss you.”
Tears burn Sara’s throat and she has to look away. She hears Doc Robbins shuffling away, hears the door close quietly behind him, and only then does Sam pull her into a hug. She returns the gesture, arms going tightly around his neck, and she stays there until she feels strong enough to look at him again.
Even when she can look, she can’t speak, and it’s left to Sam to fill the silence. “It’s going to be ok, you know.”
It’s not the first time he’s said that to her, nor is it the first time that she’s found it hard to believe him. “What happens now?” she whispers.
He takes a deep breath. “We stay here for a few days… the doc’s wife knows everything, so that’s not a problem. I play the grieving boyfriend… bury you…pack up your apartment…” Sara shudders again at that; he squeezes her hands tightly. “Then I tell people that I can’t face staying here without you…”
His voice trails off, and Sara realises she’s leaning forward, eager to hear what comes next. “And then?” she prompts.
“Then we find somewhere quiet, out of the way, where I can teach you what you need to know to survive The Game.” It’s not what she wants to hear, and the reality of her new life crashes over her, has her trembling from head to foot. She’s so stricken by those words that she almost misses what comes next. “And then… we start our happily ever after.”
When the words register, she looks into eyes, really looks into them, and she sees more peace, more certainty there, than she’s ever seen before. His face breaks into a grin, and she feels her own follow suit, because how many times has she wanted that? “Happily ever after?”
Sam nods slowly, brings his lips to hers. “For all eternity,” he whispers just before he kisses her, and this time, when Sara’s head starts spinning, it’s for the very best of reasons.