Title: There Be Dragons Here
Author: amazonqueenkate
Claim: Jacqui Franco
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Theme: (Set 2; #14, save me)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys, and the difference between safety and delusion is a half-step the wrong way.
Author's Notes: Inspired, in a round-about way, by a conversation in an RP. Another depressing fic. Only spoilery if you don't know that Romy Rosemont (Jacqui Franco) is no longer guest starring on CSI.

 She finds three reminders, accidentally, in the back corner of an otherwise empty closet. She shoves them away, stuffs them in a box, but it's already too late.

She's seen them, and she remembers.


a dragon


Catherine comes into the fingerprint lab just as shift is ending, not really paying attention as she blathers on about the priority case of the night. She does this often, their friendship an excuse to ignore niceties and dive face-first into the tasks ahead.

"I know you hate pulling doubles," Catherine half-apologizes as she sets a stack of fingerprint films atop the counter, "but Griss said – "

"I can't." Catherine blinks, refocusing her vision just as the lid of the banker's box seals. "Last night, remember?"

"That's tonight?" Catherine's usually more aware of such things, but then again, she's never been expert at dealing with pain, especially her own. "I'm sorry. I'll… I'll go ask Mandy."

That's not supposed to be the end of things, and Catherine knows it. They both know it, so when Catherine steps forward for a hug, it's all been said. The apologies are long-over and what is left? A banker's box, an empty lab, a double shift that cannot be, and the inevitable arrival of Mandy Webster.

"Call me sometime. We'll get a beer."

Catherine says it as though she doesn't know better.


lives


She'd bought the video at the second-hand store because he'd begged and pleaded. He'd gone through a dinosaur phase, and really, weren't dragons just dinosaurs with wings?

The animation was simple, the tune was corny, but he'd watched the video a hundred times. She'd spent months waiting for it to wear out, or the VCR to eat it, but neither happens.

She sinks onto the couch, now, and wonders if she should watch it. When she pushes it into the player and turns on the television, she waits to be annoyed.

Instead, she feels empty.


forever


David and Bobby are waiting by the front door, mismatched book ends in navy-blue lab coats.

"We're at least walking you out," David says simply, and holds the door. "One last golden opportunity to annoy you."

"Dave," Bobby warns.

"Don't start, Dawson. You can be all Southern comfort, but I am not breaking tradition tonight or any other night. We walk her out, I piss her off, and then we run away before she thinks to run us down in the minivan."

The last word freezes in the post-dawn morning. David falls silent, be it out of wit or respect, and Bobby purses his lips. They're silent the whole way across the parking lot, footfalls shuffling along the asphalt.

Once the sedan is loaded and trunk closed, it's David and not the soft-spoken Southerner who sticks his hands in his pockets and is reduced suddenly to sheepishness. "Listen," he states plainly. "If you end up talking to the barrel of a gun or the bottom of a bottle, I'll kill you myself."

"David!"

"No, Bobby." His voice is stern, and his jaw tightens. "I mean it. You have people here who give a damn. Don't blow that."

Bobby sighs and shakes his head. "He means well," he apologizes, as though he can control one David Hodges. "You go home, take care of yourself. We'll call you when, y'know, we hear anything."

David quirks an eyebrow when Bobby uses the word "when", but he remains blissfully silent.

They all three know it should be "if".


but not so


When the video ends, she's surprised her eyes are dry. She figures she's been desensitized to the sentimentality, given that she's seen it so many times. She watches the screen transition from credits to static, from static to black, and tries too hard to not consider the last time they'd watched the video.

He'd sworn to never grow up. "I always want wings and strings!" he'd announced.

She'd smiled and ruffled his hair. She wasn't even sure she'd heard until afterwards.

And by then, it'd been too late.


little boys


"You see a lot of shit in my job," she says, staring out the window. It's another blue-skied desert day, with bright sun across the city. "Even just in the lab, you hear about it and you think you're immune. -I lock my doors, it won't happen to me.' -I keep a pocket knife on my keychain, I'm safe.'

"So you're lulled into this stupid sense of safety and go to the park. You think it's fine, so you turn your back. For two minutes. A woman asks directions and you're more than happy to give them, because it won't happen to you. And when you turn around…"

"What happens when you turn around?"

She closes her eyes. "You spend three days screaming at your ex, then you spend a week calling morgues and hospitals, and you think -this isn't real. This isn't me.' And then, you get that phone call. Familiar people play unfamiliar, because you're one of them, and that safety crashes. Because you were never safe, you were just delusional."

"Jacqui, what happens when you turn around?"

She sighs and opens her eyes, looks out at the white-bright sun.

"The same thing that happens every time," she replies, and listens to a pencil scrape against paper. "Eric's gone, and I never see him alive again."