DISCLAIMER: CSI is the property of CBS and Jerry Bruckheimer.
SERIES/SEQUEL: Final part of the 'Love and Anger' series.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Castaway
By L.
PROLOGUE
Pronunciation: 'kas-t&-"wA
Function: adjective
1: thrown away; REJECTED
2 a: cast adrift or ashore as a survivor of a shipwreck
b: thrown out or left without friends or resources
It comes to completion at the place where there is nothing. It's the place of surrender, of emptiness, of laying down the burden. This is the finish.
"Cath," Sara said finally, "there are secrets too dark to let out, to let go of, to get over".
"But that's all right, baby. That's all right by me."
It's all right now.
We're building a house of the future together.
"Cath, no. Not like that, not now"
"But I've missed you so much, baby," Catherine leaned in to kiss her again, "Please, I've missed you so much".
"Yeah, me too."
They kissed, but Sara pulled away.
"I need to see Sofia first; I need to speak with her."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"But Sara come, sleep with me," Catherine rose and started towards the bedroom. "I need you close tonight."
Sara tugged her into a tight hug.
"I thought, that day I started,
I sure would hate to do this all my life..."
And forehead to forehead, hips to hips, lips to lips she mumbled the last words: "And dammit, that's just what I've gone and done."
"Sara," Catherine said, leaning back with a smirk, arms circling Sara's waist, "If you quote that damn Ryder again, I swear to God I'll..."
"Snyder."
"Whatever, shut up now and come to bed. I've missed you there."
ONE
They think they're running away from suffering, but they're not. Suffering goes with them. They carry suffering around without knowing it. There's no way we can escape it.
A woman's face, your face, so close, so terrifyingly close.
The terrible taste of the morning after, kisses and goodbyes.
"I could never seem to catch my footsteps," Sara whispered in the dark room, "have desires, they fly away".
"It's all right, honey, we can do this together."
"I can think of nothing better," she took a deep breath, "Catherine?"
"Yes, baby, anything."
"Can I cry now?"
She could and she did, and Catherine was not afraid.
"I don't know you," she soothed "and you don't know me: It is this that brings us together".
Catherine hummed something, softly, too quietly.
"I don't know what you are looking for in me," Sara murmured.
"I don't know what I want," she forced Sara to look at her and repeated, "It is this that brings us together." She chased the fidgeting eyes, she calmed the stiffening body; her wounded childlike lover, posing as woman. Then, in hushed words, "I need you. Am I yours? Are you mine?"
We'll find all we're meant to find.
"Please be kind to my mistakes," Sara said, "Be kind to me".
"I was a mess, Sara," Catherine smiled, "when you were gone, off..." she trailed off and nodded to her nightstand, "I bought this book..."
Sara reached for the book, and turned on the lamp.
The opening section is entitled 'So Help Me Sappho,' Anne Waldman says. It is an invocation of sorts. There's absolute chaos in my own mind, much of the time, and I continue to write this poem to make sense of the chaos, without achieving any particular goal.
Sara grinned and flicked forward a few pages and read out loud:
"Waldman's goal for her poetry is simple, and yet anything but simple to achieve. She says, in effect, that what she is attempting to do on the page is to give readers not 'a refined gist' or 'an extrapolation' of feeling, thought and emotion, but an actual 'experience' of 'a high moment'."
"Sara, honey, I love you," Catherine said and put the book away, "but that doesn't mean a thing, it's nothing, it's just words".
She flipped Sara over, straddling her, leaning down to brush her breasts over Sara's mouth, face.
"This doesn't mean a thing either," she moaned quietly when Sara took a nipple in her mouth, "it doesn't count".
She sat up, and closed her eyes, grinding slowly.
"This feels so good, baby," she sighed contently, "but it doesn't matter."
"Then what does," Sara panted.
"Lindsey, you, us," she smiled, shrugged, and climbed off the bed. "The rest is just stuffing".
TWO
Anyone can build a house of wood and bricks. It's a home in the world and it follows the ways of the world.
In Sara's home, the answering machine was blinking. Sara went into her bedroom, Catherine hit PLAY.
"It's alright, I'll come 'round when you're not in and I'll pick up all my things. Everything I have I bought with you... But that's alright too. It's just," a moment's hesitation, "everything I do we did together, and there's a little piece of you in whatever I..."
Catherine stepped into the bedroom, into the bathroom looking for Sara. She found her and turned Sara into her with a finger on her lips.
"... let's change things, let's danger it up, we're crazy enough. I just can't take it, you're the only one I want."
Catherine kneeled and let herself drown in Sara, drowned out voice, voices, suffocated by submersion, blinded by submission.
"... I know where I'm going but I don't want to leave."
Sara let go and Catherine wished she could go with her.
"... just forget it, alright?" a chuckle, "No, that's right: you can't."
Catherine stepped back into the living room and hit the REWIND button to listen to it all, again.
"Remember this, baby?" a sigh,
"You get away from me
You keep your distance
I will overpower you with my scent
of life & death..." another chuckle, "remember what it made you do?"
She sank down in the couch as she heard Sara finishing up in the bathroom, and listened as the tape rolled.
"You who came through the crack in my world."
Catherine slammed the STOP button.
Sara walked in and watched Catherine with a raised brow. Catherine shrugged, embarrassed, and said: "You should listen to that when you're back here alone, on your own".
Sara looked at the machine, and then back at Catherine as her body remembered that which just had happened.
She prowled into Catherine's space, crowding her.
"In the space of what we've been" Sara said, "You'll come looking for me then?" She pushed Catherine deeper into the cushions. "How can I claim to know? How can I claim to be prepared for what I think I know?"
"No one loves you more," Catherine gasped, grasping Sara desperately to her, "No one knows you better. How can she claim to know?"
"Everything about you smells like instinct, like sex, Cath," Sara said, burrowing into her, "earth and sea, fire and wind, fruit and the sweetest flowers. Everything about you is soft and warm and dangerous."
She let her teeth sink into her.
THREE
When we see beyond the self, we no longer cling to happiness and we can truly be happy. Learn to let go without struggle, simply let go, to be just as you are - no holding on, no attachment, free... Sofia sighed.
“It's been such a long week, Sar’,” she said while pulling on latex gloves.
Her shirt was impeccably crisp, a faint scent of laundry detergent. Her face and hair like a perfect, beautiful painting. A horrific and sad painting.
Sara clung to her coffee cup, both of them avoiding eyes.
“I don’t want to lose this, Sofia.”
Brass pulled up and stepped out of his car, Sofia approached him as Sara crouched to examine the body.
Sara leaned closer to look at the victim’s hands.
“Hey, guys?” she said, “Take a look at this.”
They did and noticed that fingers and fingernails looked as if they had been painted red.
"And on her buttocks we’ll find the same change. It’s called erythema. It is a kind of skin inflammation? You notice how the skin is crumbling off at several places, in toxicology there is a special term for this: the boiled lobster syndrome.”
“OK, so much for that fancy dinner later...” Brass joked as his phone shrilled, “You’ve got this, right? I have to take this,” he took the call and walked to his car.
David arrived, and Sara and Sofia stepped to the side.
“So much crying,” Sofia pinched her nose, swallowed hard and stared off, “I've been told when I get older I'll understand it all. But I'm not so sure I want to.”
“I don’t want to lose this, Sofia.”
"Remember this, Sara?” Sofia scowled, “‘Great rage without clamor, that grew great because its depth is quiet’? Remember what THAT made you do?”
Sara flinched, but then looked away and said “It is a pain to remember,” her hands flickered, longing to touch, “And a strain to forget...” she crunched up her face. “She says I’m too sensitive.”
“She took the game right out of it,” Sofia gazed at her. “You lost the game, Sara, our game”.
“I don’t want to lose this, Sofia,” Sara repeated.
Her eyes are full, but her face is empty.
See how the heart reaches out instinctively for no reason but to touch. See how friends become lovers become friends. See what they share, what they lose.
"I do love you Sara."
These words don’t come easy for me.
"I love you too, Sofia, it's just..."
"Catherine."
"I'm crazy in love with her,” she smiled helplessly. “I'm crazy about her. She drives me -"
"Crazy,” Sofia snapped, “I got it the first time."
The pull and the push of it all.
“You know if I were her,” Sofia said while angrily rubbing, hitting at threatening tears, “I would prefer you to fuck me once in a while instead.”
Sara’s head whipped up, “That’s an awful thing to say.”
“You still don’t get it, do you?” Sofia laughed, acidly, “The things you say, Sara, are far more intimate than anything you can do. Anything.”
Sofia finally let her smile reach her eyes, and let it go with a sigh. “I know this, Catherine knows this. It’s only you honey, that don’t.”
FOUR
If you let go a little, you will have a little peace.
Sofia came searching for Catherine to inform her on the latest developments of the case. She found her in the break room, of course, making coffee. Neither acknowledged the ramifications of pretty much anything, except work.
“The vic hadn’t told her parents but, about a week ago, she contacted a Dr. Hanks for treatment, and allegedly he administered her some medication,” Sofia flipped through her notes and continued, “Soon after she began the treatment, she started to feel nauseated. She had severe diarrhea and vomiting.”
“She was also reported to have severe pain in her stomach, severe convulsions, and tremors,” Catherine interjected.
“Two days ago, she was feeling extremely lethargic and was having headaches off and on. She again contacted Dr. Hanks yesterday and he administered something to her. Within about 2 hours of this she died.”
“Right.”
Catherine took off her glasses, and absentmindedly swung them around. Sofia watched in silence, and then muttered:
“You remember the last time we were here?”
“Of course I do,” Catherine smiled carefully, and put the glasses back on, “Coffee?”
“Thanks,” Sofia sat down, “Please say she won't forget me,” she sighed and leaned back and closed her eyes. “No one makes me feel the way she does.”
Catherine stood by the counter, uncertain. A little bit frightened of the emotion surrounding the sitting woman, oozing from her. And a little bit pissed, too.
If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.
Sofia continued, “You know that I'll be waiting to hear her footsteps saying that she'll be coming home?”
If you let go completely, you will have complete peace.
Like that last time, Catherine made a decision.
“How can anyone have such little defense?” Sofia said, “In between the sheets, covering me like the pillow...”
As Catherine was about to lunge at her, Greg stepped in and stopped, bewildered. He mumbled apologetically, “Boron compounds".
"What, boron? Doesn't sound like a poison," Catherine said.
"Admittedly, boron is not a common poison, but it is certainly poisonous and can cause death. Boron in elemental form is not poisonous, but its salts are,” Greg explained.
“Its most common salts are sodium borate, sodium biborate, sodium pyroborate, and sodium tetraborate,” Sofia took over, cool now. “Boric acid is a colorless, odorless compound commercially available as granules, and white powder...”
“A teaspoon of 100% boric acid crystals contains approximately 4 g of boric acid..." Greg finished.
“Great job, Greg,” Sofia said and rose to leave. Glancing a last time at Catherine.
They both waited until Greg realized he was supposed to be anywhere but there.
“Defenses? I can hardly tell the difference anymore,” Catherine said. “To be with her, I'd leave everything. But, truthfully? I don't know how to deal with her. I swear she'd fall like a feather if I was cruel.”
FIVE
"Sara, I've told you this before," Grissom began, "the basics in our practice should be one: to be honest and upright; two: to be wary of wrongdoing; and three: to be humble within one's heart, to be aloof and content with little. If we are content with little in regards to speech and in all other things, we will see ourselves, we won't be distracted."
"Gil, please," she sighed, "could we please, just for once, have a conversation that isn't an analogy of my social life?"
"Absolutely," he nodded, "but it does provide for some felicitous rambling, don't you think?"
Sara groaned.
"In the early part of the last century -"
"The 1900s."
"Correct, boron was recommended for the treatment of ammoniacal dermatitis in children - "
"Have poisonings occurred from boron hydrides as well?"
"Indeed it has. Boron hydrides are used in the industry for several purposes. But surely you know that?"
Sara nodded.
"To make semiconductors, for example, the wafer of silicon has to be doped with boron."
"There are several other complicated uses of boron hydrides in the industry. Cases have occurred when pentaborane has accidentally been released in an industrial area and poisoned the workers."
"I remember," He leaned back and clasped his hands. "Emmenagogue is a drug that increases the flow of menstrual blood. The term comes from the Greek roots emmena, and agogein. Literally the term refers to any drug which 'draws forth the menses'. Interestingly the root agogein is seen in many other medical terms such as cholagogue, which refers to any drug which increases the secretion of bile."
"Many drugs have a reputation as emmenagogues," Sara grinned, "some of them being aloes, potassium permanganate, pennyroyal, caulophyllin, AND... boron."
In the warm room Catherine's perfume reached Sara.
"Sara?" quietly, by the door.
"I need to go."
"Go," he smiled, "'Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter.'" He waved them off.
Down she'll go, to where the mellow wallows.
She'll tell you that she'll stay. She'll tell you she's true. She'll tell you she loves you...
Much, much later, Catherine prepared to go to bed, and she let Sara watch her undress, she let her go places where her mouth longed to linger, she let her fall into her and stay there.
And after, Sara whispered, "It wouldn't take me long to tell you how to find it, to tell you where we'll meet..."
Catherine released Sara's fingers slowly with a sigh.
"Go into the garden, go under the ivy, under the leaves, away from the party..."
For me.
"It's not easy for me to give away a secret, it's not safe," the whispers continued.
"I know."
"Let me tell you a secret..."
SIX
If you really see uncertainty clearly, you will see that which is certain. The certainty is that things must inevitably be uncertain and that they cannot be otherwise. Do you understand?
“Boric acid can be administered homicidally especially as it is a colorless and odorless compound,” Sara pushed the door open walking backwards, motioning for Sofia to pass, “and it is quite commonly available. But no homicidal poisoning with boric acid has yet been reported perhaps because its lethal dose is rather high: about 20 g.”
As Sofia brushed past she momentarily closed her eyes.
“As you well know, the ideal homicidal poison is one which is not only colorless, odorless and tasteless, but whose lethal dose is very small.”
“Sofia, I don’t understand what you need me for, you know this as well as I do?”
“Has it been known to be taken for suicidal purposes?"
"Not to my knowledge, but certainly people have got poisoned when it’s been mistaken for other salts. There are cases when boric acid crystals have been mistaken for other innocuous salts and ingested.”
“This,” Sofia smiled, “this is nice. I like this.”
Sara smiled right back, and started to speak but Sofia interrupted, “Don’t,” she shook her head no, “Go on, please?”
“Between thoughts,” Sara said
“A vacant breath
Words won’t do it”
Sara stumbled some, but continued, “Sofia, I am so, so, sorry”.
“I know.”
I've got your every move on file, I could be you.
“Some girls who become pregnant before marriage can not go to regular doctors for abortion for fears of facing parents, friends...” she closed her eyes briefly. “So they pick an easy way out; they go to quacks that often do it in a hush-hush manner so that no one else will know about it.”
“But they do not have the qualifications, so abortions performed by them are often criminal in nature?”
“Right, and since these doctors are not properly qualified, they resort to old dangerous methods of abortion, such as emmenagogues. The idea is that by promoting the flow of menstrual blood, they would somehow be able to ‘wash out’ the young embryo lodged in the uterine wall. This method does work at times but it’s extremely dangerous.”
“She wanted an abortion, and then she died. I get it,” Sofia shook her head as she opened the door, “Sara, for all our sakes: grow up.”
SEVEN
All bodies are composed of the four elements of earth, water, wind, and fire. When they come together and form a body we say it's a male, or a female, give it names, and so on, so that we can identify each other more easily.
But if you really look, you won't find anyone there.
They were all gathered in the big layout room to summarize their findings before turning all the evidence over to the DA.
"I think we have the whole picture now," Catherine began, "The vic was pregnant and she contacted Dr. Hanks for an abortion. Dr. Hanks administered her borax as an emmenagogue. But it did not work; it killed her instead."
"Right," Sara picked up, "The symptoms which she had had were symptoms of pregnancy. For reasons unknown, she did not want to make it known to her parents, so she contacted Dr. Hanks who was quite sure that he could do the job..."
"Post-mortem findings in boron poisonings are not very specific," Catherine added, "Doc Robbins told me the mucosa was bright red and the blood was cherry red in appearance."
"The levels of boron in her blood were important," Grissom concluded, "Normally boron levels in the blood are minimal. A level of 50 mg/100 ml indicates poisoning, but I found boron levels exceeding 500 mg/100 mg, which surely is enough to cause death. The actual lethal dose of a boron salt is between 15-20 g for adults and from 3-5 g in infants."
"So we believe that," Sofia's eyes wandered the room, "Dr. Hanks must have administered a dose about 20 g greater the second time. He must have tried a lesser dose the first time, and when that didn't do the trick, he administered a larger dose the next time."
"Now, the only question is: Why?" Catherine continued. "Why would a young woman not tell her parents, why would she feel forced to use that quack, and why isn't there a guy somewhere, a dad?"
"Those questions have no bearing on our investigation at this time Catherine, and you know it," said Sofia.
They stared at each other for several moments, until Catherine finally shrugged, with a smile.
All nods and confirmations, the meeting was wrapped up, and everyone rose to get home for the day.
Sofia caught up with Sara in the corridor.
"Hey, Sara."
"Hey."
"You got a minute?"
"Sure."
They started towards the parking lot, quickly falling into step.
"Soph?"
Sofia stopped and reached for Sara's hand, then stood a long time just watching it.
"I never stood a chance, did I?"
"Honest?" Sara tilted her head.
"Please."
"No," she tugged a little at Sofia, "She had me at our very first kiss," furrowing her brow. "Hell, she had me years ago."
"So I was nothing to you?" Sofia stared at her defiantly, daring her.
"You were amazing," Sara stared right back. "You still are... I'm very lucky to have you in my life."
She took a deep breath, "You and I have something..." exhaled, "What we share..."
"I've tried so hard to impress you."
"Yes. No. Don't..." Sara wavered, "She will never understand, she..." Sara tried to focus. "But she knows stuff that you and I will never..."
Sofia sneered, "I bet".
"No. Not like that, don't speak of her like that."
Sara really, really wanted, no, needed to explain:
"You and I, we... She... I..." she looked at Sofia, helplessly.
Sofia smiled, how could she not?
"You're crazy about her."
"Yeah, I am."
"And she like, TOTALLY gets you."
Big grins. Huge.
"Yeah, she does."
For a while, they just rested in that, and then Sofia chuckled and said, "She's waiting for you," and nodded towards Catherine's car.
They both smiled, knowing they'd be OK. Maybe not what they'd intended or hoped, but OK.
Sara took off.
"Hi."
"Hi, yourself."
"You OK?"
"Yeah, just fine."
"Good, good..." Catherine slung her arm around slim shoulders. "My ego in my gut... my babbling mouth would wash it up but once I've started learning how, I keep it shut."
"Yes."
"We let the weirdness in," she squeezed, "you and me. It can stay with us."
"Yes."
"You'll never change," Catherine let her go, "and maybe I could be happy with someone else, but... here you are, at my door."
"Yes."
"So, what do you want for dinner?"
"Linds said she'd make pizza..."
"Oh, my."
"Cool, huh?"
EIGHT
There's no need to explain anything at length. Let go of anger and hate, and let things be.
Love too?
Yes, love too. They're just words.
Then what else is there?
You, me, us... The important stuff.
The End