Archive of Our Own

Tell me something, Sara," I murmured, leaning back to study her face. "What is it that frightens you so much about me? This?" I gestured languidly between us, lending a far more nonchalant appearance than she might have guessed.

She blinked owlishly at me, a slight tinge of pink darkening her skin. "I don’t understand what you mean."

"Oh, I think you do, Sara. You’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, haven’t you?" She stared at me with wide, frightened eyes. "Oh, I’ve felt your eyes following me, studying my every move. When I wear black, which I happen to like, you tend to watch me more closely than any other color. Did you realize that?"

"Um…"

I bit my cheek until I practically tasted blood to hold in my amusement at her deepening flush of embarrassment. My, but she did look particularly tasty all flustered like that.

"Is that what motivates you, Sara? Some sort of fetish for what you perceive to be bad boys? Or bad girls in this case?" I let my voice drop just a hint lower, absently trailed one finger along the opened edge of my blouse. Those liquid dark chocolate eyes followed my finger avidly for a few seconds.

"I don’t, um, that is, I’ve never--"

My eyebrows rose in curiosity. "Never, Sara? Not once? Are you so sure about that?"

In a flurry of nervous energy, Sara was on her feet and heading toward the door. "I don't need this shit!" she growled at me. "Is this some of game to you, Sofia? Some way to get back at me because I wasn't exactly nice to you when you first joined the team? Jeezus, give it a rest, okay? Shit happens."

I didn't bother to hide my surprise at her outburst. It certainly hadn't been what I was expecting from her. Nor could I necessarily dismiss the memories of being the outsider with this close-knit group. It had hurt, quite a bit in fact, but I'd thought it all water under the bridge. Particularly once I'd become a detective. Perhaps I'd been wrong…about more than one thing here.

"Fine," I finally said, pushing off from the table. I headed toward her, intending to leave with at least a few shreds of my dignity left. "You know what, Sara? I give up. I'm done with this."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't know what I was thinking. Of course, there was never any sort of attraction that I saw. You weren't checking me out. You were still seeing me as the competition, the outsider. And you know what else? I don't need it any longer. You go ahead and think what you will about me. It doesn't matter in the long run. I know who and what I am. And I certainly don't need your approval or your twisted brand of friendship."

I pushed past her and took off down the hall and outside. The sweltering heat beat down on me, adding to the overwhelming weight of my mistaken assumptions. I leaned against the wall, closed my eyes, and tried to let go of the anger and disbelief.

"Hey, Sofia," Greg's voice cut into my thoughts. "You seen Sara? We're supposed to be meeting Nick for breakfast at Frank's."

"Do I look like her keeper?" I snapped at him, barely resisting the urge to level him with a withering glance. "Why don't you go find her yourself, Greg?"

"You okay, Sofia?" His tone was genuine enough to feed my guilt. "There something I can help with?"

"Thanks for the offer, Greg, but no, I don't think there's anything you can do. I've just realized that I made some mistaken assumptions that I'll have to deal with. Um, the last I saw, Sara was in the break room." I took a deep breath and met his concerned gaze. "Listen, Greg, I'm sorry for snapping at you. You didn't deserve it."

"No sweat, okay? Nobody's perfect. Go home, have a beer, watch a little porn, get some sleep, and I'll see you tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah, sure, Greg. See you then," I chuckled and smiled my thanks as I watched him leave. For a moment, I thought about going to find Sara, apologize to her for my behavior. But her reaction still stung, bringing back the earlier embarrassment at being oh so wrong in my assumptions.

Heading back inside, I made my way to the locker room to get my purse and keys to go home. I did what I could to avoid the CSIs. I just wasn't in the mood for another confrontation. Opening my locker, I wasn't fast enough to stop the bottle of lotion from falling and splattering all over me. Swearing to myself, I stripped off my shirt, and dug in to find a different shirt to get me home. Slipping on the soft cotton t-shirt, I balled up the stained one and shoved it into an empty plastic bag before stalking out of the locker room.

Once home, I grabbed a cold beer and tossed the shirt into the sink to soak with detergent. As I quickly finished off that first bottle, I stripped down and started the shower. The moment I stepped under those incredibly hot needles of water, I felt the tears begin to burn behind my eyes. The humiliation and anger were no longer held in check, and I trembled with the intensity of emotion coursing through me.

It wasn't as if I was some lovesick teenager with her first crush. I shouldn't be feeling this damned emotional over Sara's rejection. But it was more than just the wrong assumption about her attraction to me. It was the fact that I was still feeling so damned sensitive about the whole team's rejection of me back when Ecklie'd played his dirty little tricks with all of us. It wasn't as if I'd done any of that purposely. Well, okay, technically I did what Ecklie'd asked because I wanted that day shift supervisor position. But there wasn't anything to dig up on the team. Wasn't that the same reason Sara'd been brought from San Francisco in the first place? And what hurt even more was the fact that they'd all forgiven Sara and made her a part of their little family, but I hadn't gotten the same treatment.

Finally shutting off the now-cold water, I brusquely dried off and slipped into a comfortably worn t-shirt and my favorite silk pajama pants. Grabbing another beer, I decided against cooking. With a few well-practiced keystrokes and shortcuts, I ordered my favorite comfort foods for delivery and settled in for a night of movies, Thai, and beer.

By the time I was well into my third beer, I'd become lost in an old favorite DVD. Startled by the knock at the door that signaled my dinner had arrived, I reluctantly paused the movie and grabbed for my wallet. I could feel the beer already settling around my nerves, blunting the raw emotions from my shower. Opening the door, I started to ask, "How much do I owe you?"

But I stopped at the sight of the delivery person. Or rather, the very lack of a delivery person. Instead, there stood Sara Sidle holding the large bag of Thai food. I was frozen in my spot, unable to speak or look away for a long moment.

"Can I come in?" she finally asked, gesturing to the food. "This'll get cold otherwise."

Her words broke my paralysis and I grabbed for the bag. "Why? Haven't we already said enough?"

She shook her head, holding the bag back out of my reach. "No, I don't think I've said much of anything. You never gave me the chance." She took a deep breath. "Look, I’m here to apologize. Will you at least let me do that before you slam the door in my face?"

"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you, Sara? The big bad dyke hits on you, yells at you, then slams the door in your face after you apologize? Makes you out to be the victim again so you can get coddling from your friends?" Her eyes narrowed dangerously. If I'd been more sober, more attuned to the situation, I'd have realized what I'd done. But I chose instead to let my own hurt feelings dominate. "Look, I'm really not in the mood for this, all right? Just go back to wherever you came from and let me be. I really don't care what you or anyone else on your team thinks of me anymore. I'm there to do a job, and that's how I'll interact with all of you. Nothing personal whatsoever, strictly a professional relationship. Satisfied?"

I started to close the door, just wanting her gone. I didn't even care about the food anymore. Another beer, finish my movie, and I'd head off to bed where my alcohol-induced dreams would haunt me. Sounded like the recipe for the rest of my natural life. Perhaps I could talk to Jim about a transfer. No, Jim wouldn't be a good person to talk to. These people were his friends, his former subordinates. There was no reason to involve him in my stupidity.

"No, I'm not satisfied," Sara retorted, pushing at the door. "That's a coward's way out, Sofia. And you are by no means a coward." I scowled at her and headed back to the couch to finish my beer. "And you don't need that either," she continued, suddenly at my side to take the beer out of my hand. "Will you please just let me explain?"

"If I do, will you leave me alone?" I asked, surprised at the petulance in my own tone.

"If you actually listen to what I have to say, and you still feel the same way, I'll walk out that door and never bother you again. Can you at least do that much?"

I studied her for a long moment, feeling her sincerity cut through the slight haze of the beer. Nodding, I settled into the corner of the couch and flicked off the television. I watched her pace for a moment or two before heading over to my kitchen to dump the last of my beer down the sink and set the bag of food in my fridge. Upon returning, she held out a large glass of water to me. I took it gratefully and sipped at it slowly.

"Sofia, I'm sorry I flipped out on your before, okay?" she started softly. "I just… I wasn't expecting the conversation for one thing. And I certainly wasn't expecting to be called on something I hadn't even realized I was doing." She shook her head then. "No, that's not precisely true. I kind of knew what was going on, but I didn't want to acknowledge it."

"Why not? Afraid of learning something new about yourself?" I hoped I wasn't imagining that the petulance had gone away.

Sara shook her head and settled on the other side of the couch, adopting a similar pose to mine. "Nope, more like I was afraid to admit to something I'd been trying to ignore for most of my adult life." She paused, taking a deep breath. "Can I share something with you, Sofia? In strictest confidence?"

I nodded mutely, wondering why she'd be sharing something important with me if she didn't like me or my advances.

"When I was sixteen, I was in foster care, right?" she paused long enough for me to nod, then continued as if the devil himself were on her heels to stop her from saying what she needed to. "I took enough shit from the other kids in school because of what happened when my mom killed my dad. I mean, I understand why she did it now, but I was so confused back then. But somehow, it got out at school. I was still so damned reluctant to get close to anyone because every time I did, I got shifted to a different foster home and a different school. Or they'd find out about my past and get all weird. It was just easier to focus on my schoolwork and getting the best possible grades so I could get scholarships to college.

"My foster family wouldn't allow me to get a job to help save up for college. They wanted me to work in their B&B. As long as I had time for my studies, I worked as much as I could for them. They told me it was a familial obligation. It wasn't until after I'd been accepted to Harvard and was off at school for a year that they sent me the information for the savings account they'd set up for me. They'd wanted to make sure I was serious about school before sending me basically two and a half years worth of earnings from working the B&B."

When she paused to take a breath, I couldn't help but ask the question burning in my mind. "No offense, Sara, but what does this have to do with your outburst earlier?"

"I was getting there. Just setting up the background first. See, when I was sixteen, I found myself breaking one of my own rules and forming an attachment with a girl at school. Well, I suppose if I'm gonna be honest, I should be completely honest. I had a crush on her. I was a sophomore; she was a senior. She was gorgeous and popular. Mandy Taylor was her name. Long pretty blonde hair, like yours, and the prettiest green eyes I'd ever seen. She'd been having trouble in physics and I'd been asked to tutor her so she could graduate."

"First crush?" I asked, remembering my own first crush.

"Yeah," she replied, a sheepish, reminiscent smile on her face. "I didn't necessarily realize it at the time. She kind of took me under her wing, you know? Gave me a few makeup and hair tips. Introduced me to a few of her friends. You know how that goes."

"So what happened?"

"We'd worked so hard on getting her to understand physics and her grades were improving like crazy. So she said as a thank you, and a precursor to passing her final, that she was going to help me get a dress and a date for the spring dance. I told her that wasn't something that was really for me, but she insisted. And I couldn't resist much when she got that look on in her eyes. It was just easier to agree with her and hope she'd forget about it."

"But she didn't, did she?"

Sara shook her head. "Nope, got me a gorgeous dress. First new thing I'd owned since I'd gone into the foster care system. It was this deep blue velvet dress. I fell in love with it. She got a good friend of hers to take me to the dance. He was a complete gentleman…until he tried to force me into sex at the after-dance party at Mandy's house. She walked in on us in her parents' bathroom and kicked him the hell out of the house."

I winced at her story, and found myself leaning forward to place a hand on her arm. "Sara, I'm so sorry. No one should have to go through something like that." She shrugged nonchalantly, but I could see it affected her more than she cared to admit. Even just the memories were rough on her. "Sara, you don't have to do this. It's pretty obvious this is upsetting you."

"No, let me, please?" When I nodded, she took a deep breath and continued. "I was pretty messed up that night, obviously. I was feeling so dirty, so out of sorts. Mandy talked me into a shower. I was already staying the night, so it didn't take much. While I was trying to scrub away the memories, she told everybody that I'd gotten sick and sent them all home. There were a few people who heard the actual story, people she trusted implicitly.

"When I got out of the shower, she got me into my pajamas and tucked me up in her bed. I curled up against her side and cried my eyes out. She kept reassuring me that he'd pay for what he did, that it wasn't my fault."

"It wasn't your fault, Sara."

"I know that now, and the logical part of me knew that then. But the logical part of me wasn't what was in charge at the time. Mandy did everything she could to calm me, even tried to give me one of her mom's sleeping pills so I could calm down and sleep without dreaming. I refused the pills, I didn't want to be stuck in a nightmare and unable to wake up. So Mandy basically talked me to sleep and stroked my back. At one point, she leaned over to kiss my cheek in reassurance. I turned to thank her at the same time, and it ended up a tentative kiss. That kiss led to another, which led to… Well, let's just say I still ended up losing my virginity that night, just not to him."

She paused again, got up to get her own glass of water before coming back to the couch. When she sat down, she didn't say anything, but I could see she was troubled still. "There's more, isn't there?"

"On Monday, when I got to school, he'd spread a bunch of rumors about how easy I was, that I'd spread my legs for anybody, that I'd begged him to fuck me like the bitch in heat that I was. Mandy and her friends did what they could to counter his attacks, but the damage was done, particularly among the seniors. Then he started spreading the rumors about me and Mandy. Of course, Mandy got a little freaked and backed off. After a few weeks, she stopped the tutoring sessions. She said she'd learned everything she could from me and that she felt confident about the physics final. And when she left, even more of the lesbian rumors started about me. And all of the supposed friends I'd made through Mandy were gone, too. I wanted to die, you know? I hadn't done anything wrong, but I was the one being ostracized. And I swore then and there, that I was straight. That what happened with Mandy had simply been because I was upset. I'd put it out of my mind for so long…"

"Until I cornered you today," I supplied for her, my guilt ratcheting. "Oh, Sara, I'm so sorry. I never meant to bring back such horrible memories for you."

"No, Sofia, that's not why I told you this." She ran a hand through her hair. "I freaked out because I was feeling the same thing for you that I'd felt for Mandy all those years ago. Every other time I've started to feel like that for another woman, I immediately went to find the first guy that paid attention to me to prove to myself I wasn't gay. The guys have all been horrible for me, but I couldn't help myself. No one else ever knew this, not even Catherine and Grissom."

I blinked in surprise, clearly stunned that she'd trusted me with something that important and personal. "Sara, I-- Thank you. Thank you for trusting me with this. I won't break your confidence."

"I like you, Sofia. I have almost from the start. At first, I fought the attraction, hid behind the animosity because of the team being split up. But I couldn't keep it up. I wanted to be your friend, wanted to be closer to you. I didn't think you honestly felt the same way, so I did what I could to be satisfied with the friendship, the work camaraderie. So I was totally thrown when you called me on it today. And I guess…"

"You worried I'd do the same thing that Mandy had done to you?" I shook my head. "Never. I'm not like that, Sara. I know you may not believe that, but I'm willing to do whatever it takes to prove my sincerity."

"I know you will," she replied and squeezed my hand still resting on her arm. "Greg told me how you'd jumped down his throat when he found you. I'd grilled him for details on what you'd said, why you were angry, what you did. Finally, he just stared at me and asked me why I was still sitting at Frank's with him, instead of coming over here to talk to you."

"And you came anyway?"

"I needed to… I actually sat in my car for a while, trying to decide what to do. I wrestled with my demons and decided to see if I could salvage something after our face-off earlier. I like you, Sofia. I like working with you, I don't want to lose that relationship. And I wanted… I don't know."

"I understand, Sara," I murmured, moving close enough to open my arms in invitation. I was gratified and hopeful when she accepted the comforting embrace. "I've never been more impressed with your inner strength than I am right now. I would love to explore what might happen between us, too, hopefully without losing the relationship we already have at work."

She nodded. "Mandy was the only woman I ever let get that close to me. I'm not really sure how…"

"We'll go as slowly as you need to, Sara. I'm in no hurry to get you into my bed. You're not going to be a notch in my bedpost, okay?"

She pulled back to grin at that analogy. "Are you saying you're something of a Don Juan, Sofia?" she teased lightly.

Just then, my stomach growled loudly, breaking the tension. "I will share anything from my past that you want to know, just let me eat first? I spent like forty bucks on that Thai food."

"Actually, I bought the Thai food. I caught up to the delivery guy just before he knocked on your door. I figured it was worth the chance to clear the air and see what happened."

"I'm glad you did," I replied honestly, standing up and pulling her up with me. "I don't know that I'd have done it myself. I was actually working myself into requesting a transfer."

"Then I'm definitely glad I decided to face my demons and take this chance. I wouldn't want you to leave, Sofia."

"Me, either."

We headed into the kitchen together. I pulled out plates and silverware while Sara grabbed the Thai food. Heading back into the living room, we began dishing out the food.

"So, what were you watching before I came over?" Sara asked.

"Oh, just an old favorite movie called It's In The Water. Ever seen it?" When she shook her head, I grinned. "Well, we'll just have to remedy that, won't we?" I teased, poking at her side. She just laughed and nibbled on a shrimp. "For now, how does an old episode of Xena work for you? I've got every season currently out on DVD."

"I love that show!"

With a grin, I moved to change the DVD as Sara refilled our water glasses. We settled into companionable silence as we ate, and I found myself liking her presence in my apartment even more than I'd hoped to. Once we'd eaten our fill, we ended up gravitating closer to each other, until finally I had my arm around her shoulders and her head resting on my shoulder.

"Sofia?" she finally asked some time later. "I don't consider you a bad girl, but I gotta admit that I love you in black."

I grinned broadly and pressed an impulsive kiss to her temple. "Good thing it's one of my favorite colors then, isn't it?"