Got ‘Til It’s Gone
Fandom: CSI
Pairing: Warrick/Sara
Rating: PG
Notes: Neko asked for post-apocalyptic fic. Which I’ve never done. And it’s het, which she doesn’t read. But oh well.
Someone, somewhere, is humming.
It’s slightly off-tune, but still recognisable as Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” and being as Sara’s never liked that song, hearing the chorus over and over and over again is really getting on her nerves.
“Sara?”
There’s a voice saying her name, and it sounds like it’s coming from very far away, further than the humming, even. It’s a voice she recognises, but can’t place, and she frowns, because she knows she should be able to.
“Come on, Sara… come back to me…”
This time, the voice is closer, right beside her ear, and there’s a warm weight around her shoulders; someone’s arm, she thinks. She frowns again, and somewhere deep in her brain makes the connection, that the voice is connected to the arm, and “Big Yellow Taxi” is replaced by “Dem Bones,” and the voice doesn’t seem to like that much.
“Look at me, Sara…”
The arm around her shoulder has a hand at the end of it, and the hand tightens on her shoulder as the arm gives her a shake. That, combined with the worry in the voice, has her turning her head, and it’s hard to focus at first. When she does though, really having to put her mind to it, she finds herself looking into a pair of green eyes that she knows well.
Warrick’s eyes.
They are Warrick’s eyes and Warrick’s hand on her shoulder, and Warrick’s arm around her, and it is Warrick’s lips that turn up in what might just be something approaching a smile. “That’s it,” he says, his voice low. “Come on now… talk to me…”
The humming stops suddenly, and she realises belatedly that it was she who’d been doing that, just like she realises where she is; in a small apartment on the outskirts of Vegas, sitting on the floor in the corner of a dirty, dusty room. Her knees are drawn up to her chin, her arms wrapped around them, and she is rocking back and forth, and Warrick’s arm is around her, and he is staring at her, worry written all over his handsome face.
She takes a deep breath, tongue reaching out to run over dry lips. “I thought you were gone,” she tells him, and understanding flares in his eyes, along with dismay.
“No… Sara, no… I was out looking for food… trying to find someone who knows something…”
She knows, after all this time, that it’s futile to hope, but hope, it seems, really does spring eternal. “Did you?” she asks, and she doesn’t need to see the shake of his head, reads his answer loud and clear in the silence that follows her question.
She sighs, drops her head onto his shoulder, and he pulls her into his embrace. Once upon a time, she never would have let him hold her like this, but that was before, and this is after, and she needs him, needs the strength he has to offer. He rests his head against hers, his cheek resting on top of her hair, one hand reaching up to play with the unruly curls. “I’m sorry I scared you,” he whispers, and she swallows hard. The last thing she ever wanted to do was make him feel guilty, but he’d never been gone for that long before, and she’d been seized with the fear that something that happened to him, that she was never going to see him again.
She’s lost everything that mattered to her more than once in her life.
She couldn’t stand to lose him too.
“It’s ok,” she whispers back, and it strikes her as crazy that they’re whispering, because, after all, who is around to hear them?
There’s a long silence, then his other hand, the one that’s not playing with her hair, the one that had been resting on his leg, reaches up, touches her chin. He tilts his head up, looks into her eyes, and for a second, she finds it hard to breathe. “I’m not gonna leave you Sara,” he promises. “Whatever happens… we’re in this together.”
They are exactly the words that she needs to hear, and tears flood her eyes, because for the first time since the world ended, for the first time since this whole nightmare began, it dawns on her that he might need her just as much as she needs him.
Swallowing hard, she nods, before she returns her head to his shoulder, and his returns to its pillow against her hair. His hand, the one that had been on her cheek, has returned to his knee, and she reaches over, takes it in hers and entwines their fingers. Her other arm slides across his chest, and it might not be the most ergonomically sound position, but she doesn’t care.
The song is in her head again, but this time with words.
“You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”
Sara’s never been a fan, but she thinks Joni’s got a point, in more ways than one.