Signing Off
Fandom: CSI
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None
Word Count: 997
Notes: For the LiveJournal Writer’s Choice challenge inspired by this picture - http://www.livejournal.com/community/writers_choice/104705.html#cutid1
Sara never thought she’d come back here, certainly never wanted to come back here, so it’s fitting, she supposes, that the day she does return, the weather is as inhospitable it ever gets here. The thought comes to her, in a voice that sounds very like her mother’s ex-hippy “wisdom” that it’s as if someone, somewhere, doesn’t want her back here, is summoning the elements to chase her away. The next instant, there’s another voice in her head, cold and logical and far too close to Grissom for comfort, telling her not to be so ridiculous, that there’s a low pressure front coming in from the Pacific, that everything has a basis in science.
Whatever the truth of the argument between her past and her present, the fact remains that today’s weather is appalling, and she wraps her jacket tighter around herself as she looks out over the cliff, towards the water. The usually calm water is dark and stormy, so dark it’s almost black, save for the white froth on the crests of the waves. She can just about make out the beach in the distance, see white spray rising up from the waves crashing against the rocks, even from this far away. The sky, usually azure blue perfection only broken by dots of white fluffy clouds, today is solid bank of grey; the breeze, usually light and fresh, is today sharp and biting, stinging her cheeks, chilling her bones, making her eyes water.
The last, at least, she’s blaming on the breeze.
“Sara Sidle?”
The voice makes her turn, embarrassed at being caught dreaming like this, to see a man, about her age, coming towards her, holding a folder tightly to his chest, the action helping to keep his jacket closed. “Yes?” she says warily, because she thinks she knows who this is, but hard won experience means she knows better than to assume.
“Dominic Richards… from the realtor’s?”
The instant she hears the name, his face swims in her memory, fading from the man he is now to the rather chubby faced boy who used to sit behind her in homeroom, and she smiles, her first smile of the day. “Dominic,” she says, shaking his hand. “I thought you’d be your father.” Because back in the day, Dominic Senior had run the firm, and she hadn’t realised any different from the faxed communications of the last two weeks.
He shakes his head. “Dad retired two years
ago… he and Mom are out in
Sara nods. “I’m a Crime Scene Investigator,” she tells him, and he chuckles knowingly.
“You always did like solving puzzles,” he remembers, and she smiles, remembering suddenly being paired on various assignments with him and other classmates, the fun that she’d had as part of the high school science club. That was the trouble with this place, she realised; there were so many bad memories that the good ones tended to get lost in the shuffle.
“Not everything is as it seems,” she murmurs, more to herself than Dominic, and she looks past him at the stone building behind them. Three storeys high, it needs a coat of paint, the cream walls bearing the stains of wear and tear, and the slates of the roof could do with being replaced as well. She’s not sure what it’s like inside, hasn’t been able to bring herself to go in and look, and she knows she won’t. There are some thresholds that can’t be crossed.
Beside her, Dominic clears her throat, bringing her back to reality. When she looks at him, she sees sympathy and understanding in his gaze, and for once, she’s not angered by it, not threatened. She’s touched, and it’s nice to be around someone who’s not going to wonder, who’s not going to ask questions.
Not about that anyway. Instead, he tilts his head, asks, “Are you sure about this Sara? We can continue letting it…”
She shakes her head. She’s come too far to go back now, even if she did want to. “I’m sure,” she tells him. “It’s just… I don’t even know what it is.”
“Nostalgia?” he guesses, and she shrugs.
“Something like that.”
There’s a long silence between them that lasts until he clears his throat again, reaches into his pocket to pull out a pen. “Well, everything’s in order… if you want to sign…”
She reaches for the papers, doesn’t even pause to skim them, barely registering the words “Deed of Sale,” at the top. Nick, who always teases her about her handwriting, would laugh at the scrawl she dashes on the dotted line, but it’s recognisable, and it’s legal, Dominic initialling her signature and dating it.
“Good doing business with you Sara,” he says, shaking her hand. “I have to get back to the office… but if you’re going to be in town for lunch?”
He lets his voice trail off, and for a minute, just a minute, she’s tempted. Then, without conscious thought, she shakes her head. “I need to get back,” she says, and he doesn’t push her.
“I’ll leave you to your goodbyes then,” he says. “Take care.”
“And you.” With that, he turns on his heel and is gone, leaving her once again staring up at her childhood home, in particular the turret tower at the side that had once housed her bedroom. A shiver that has nothing to do with the cold runs up her spine, and she knows that if she had anything inside her stomach, she’d be throwing it up right now. That, however, was accomplished when she drove into town earlier that morning, saw the sign, “You Are Now Entering Tomales Bay.”
“Goodbye,” she whispers, not sure who to, but she starts walking down the driveway to her car, past the faded sign advertising “Cliff-Sidle B&B … Visitors Welcome.”
She doesn’t look back, and for the first time in her adult life, she feels as if she’s free.