A/N - I would like to note that the last time February had 5 Fridays was in 1980. As you can see, the fic really wrote itself once I figured out that particular information. Anyway, enjoy, and feedback is always appreciated and enjoyed. Not beta'd, because it was kind of a spur of the moment situation.
February 29th, 1980
The sirens were deafening. The sirens, the screaming of her neighbors, the blood--god, there was so much blood--it all made Sara snap back to reality. All the noise made her come out of the bubble she'd been in ever since her mom and dad started fighting earlier in the evening. They fought all the time, but when it started, both Sara and Robbie knew this one would have a different ending. Laura had some kind of strange intensity about her. It was...unsettling, to say the least.
Sara learned about Leap Day at school. It only came every four years, and she was fascinated. She wondered about people who were born on Leap Day and when they celebrated their birthdays. Sometimes she'd even write long, elaborate stories about events that happened on Leap Day, she was so fascinated by it. Of course, she'd have to hide these stories from her dad. He didn't approve of such creative activities from his daughter; he said she was wasting her time. He wanted her to concentrate on math and science, and no daughter of his was going to bother with all that art crap.
At the hospital, a nice lady sat down with Sara to get her to talk about what happened. Sara did the best she could.
"My mom was helping my brother with my homework, and my dad got home early from work. He looked tired. My mom must have been so caught up in Robbie's homework that she didn't realize what time it was, or didn't know he was going to be early, or...something, because she hadn't started dinner yet. My dad wants to eat right when he gets home, and sometimes he gets mad when it's not ready yet."
"And what happens when he gets mad?" The young woman asked with a shaky voice.
Sara could tell this counselor was new. She'd never seen her before, anyway, and she'd talked to many different counselors in the past. "Wise beyond your years," the counselors would always say about her. "She's 9 going on 25," her dad would say sometimes. She wished she was 25, then she could leave and get away from all the fighting.
"He beats the crap out of us," Sara said, maybe or maybe not trying to shock this woman. It was a game she played sometimes. "Usually it's just my mom, but sometimes he goes for me and Robbie, too."
"What happened this time?"
"This time my mom fought back," Sara said. She started picking at a hole in her jeans. The hole got bigger as the mind-numbing conversation wore on.
"Does she not usually fight back?" The counselor asked carefully. Sara was young, but she knew judgment when she heard it. This woman obviously didn't understand. No one did, not really.
"Not really. She used to a long time ago, but I guess she thought it was easier not to," Sara replied easily, like these were questions on a pop quiz she'd studied for all night.
"I see. So what happened exactly, Sara?"
"My dad started yelling at her about dinner, and she yelled back. He got even more mad and knocked her in the head with the toaster. Robbie got mad and tried to punch him in the face, but my dad is bigger and threw him on the floor. My mom got really mad about that, so she grabbed a knife out of a drawer and stabbed him. He didn't look like he felt it the first time she did it, so she did it a few more times. There was a lot of blood, and it smelled pretty gross.
"Someone called the police, I have no idea who. Maybe it was a neighbor. The first people to come in was a young guy and an older guy. I guess the younger guy was new because he took one look and couldn't stop puking. It was gross."
The counselor stared at Sara, and Sara tried not to smile. She sure did a good job of shocking her.
She and the counselor talked for a while, but mostly Sara just wanted to go home and go to sleep. Nobody let her, though. They all wanted to keep talking. She didn't know how all this talking would make anything better, but she went along with it so they'd eventually let her go to bed. A few hours later, someone showed up with a suitcase full of her stuff, and Sara knew she'd never be going home again.
They tried not to separate her and Robbie, but there wasn't anyone available to take both of them, and they were sent to separate foster homes. They allowed Sara to visit her mom every couple of months, and she did until she turned 14 and couldn't care less about seeing her mother behind bars any longer. Instead, she studied. She listened to her Walkman and studied all the time. Sometimes she'd let a boy take her out for an hour or two, but that was boring. If it took studying every single night and every single day to get the hell out of this place, she would do it. Because she wasn't sure when, but at some point in her life, she decided that this one single tragic event was not going to define who she was.
Well, at least she tried.
February 29th, 2008
"Sir, you have a visitor at the front desk," Judy told Grissom, poking her head in his office.
"Okay, Judy, thanks," he said absently. "I'll be there in a moment."
He didn't care who this guest was. He didn't care about most things, really. When he wasn't at work, he was at home with Hank, trying desperately hard not to remember how things used to be. She left 3 months ago, and it wasn't getting any easier.
He didn't see what was so damn special about a leap day. He was born in a leap year and lived through 13 leap days. None of them that he could remember were ever special at all. Nick tried to have a conversation about it with him, but it just bored him to tears, like most things tended to do in the days without Sara.
"But it's a leap day," Nick told him. "It's not even supposed to exist!"
"But it does, Nick," he said, already losing patience. "It's just an extra day that happens every 4 years. You're not superstitious, are you? You're a scientist, think about it."
Nick looked disappointed.
"I'm not superstitious, but it's just...I don't know, an unusual day. Isn't that interesting? As a scientist, I'd think you'd find something like that intriguing."
Grissom shook his head. Nick shook his head. They had silently agreed to disagree.
Grissom checked his email one last time to see if she had sent him anything, as he did every 10 minutes or so, and got up to greet his visitor. He paced the long, dull halls of the lab, looking for her in every room; every corner. She wasn't there, as usual. Until she was.
He thought he was seeing things when he turned the corner. Surely Judy would have told him that Sara was his visitor, wouldn't she? As he passed Judy, she grinned at him and said, "Sorry, she wanted it to be a surprise."
The words flowed in and out of his brain, until he finally came to terms with the fact that Sara Sidle was standing merely inches away from him. Of course, she was surrounded by all her former co-workers. Warrick, Nick, Greg, Catherine...they were all smiling and happy and anxious to offer Sara their continuing support. But once they saw Grissom approaching, everyone stopped. They moved out of the way. They watched as he silently walked up to her, silently kissed her square on the lips for what seemed like hours, and then silently took her hand and walked with her outside of the lab. They didn't know where the two of them were going, but they were glad they could be together again.
At home, Hank nearly knocked Sara over as soon as she stepped inside. She let him give her big, slobbery kisses until he was satisfied. Grissom filled his bowl with dog food so he'd leave Sara alone. Hank happily obliged.
They hadn't talked much in the car. He just kept looking over to make sure she was really sitting there; that she wasn't just a ghost. She'd look up at him and smile. There was a silent agreement that they'd talk at home. Home never seemed so far away.
Grissom poured some wine for the both of them, and they sat down on the sofa they picked out when they first moved in together. It was Sara's favorite. Grissom hadn't gone near it since she left.
"How...how was your mother?" He asked her tenderly.
"Still the most frustrating woman in the world to have a conversation with, but it was good to see her," she said, smiling just a little. He liked it when she smiled. He hadn't seen her smile in such a long time.
"Look, Gil, I know I owe you an explanation. I owe you so much, and I don't even know how to begin--"
"You owe me nothing," he said, taking her hand. "You did what you had to do and I respect that. I missed you like hell, but I understood. Please don't think you owe me anything, Honey."
She smiled at the endearment.
"I know you think that, but I've just felt so bad leaving you here alone like this."
He shook his head. "It just matters now that you're here."
They were both quiet for a minute or two. Hank came over, finished with his meal, and Sara played with his soft ears while he sat next to her, a dutiful bodyguard as always.
He wanted to ask her, are you over it? How can you be over it when you've only been gone for 3 months? Are you going to leave me again? Will your ghosts still haunt you when you're sleeping? What can I do to make it better? But if he had learned anything about Sara Sidle in the near decade that he'd known her, he knew she'd talk when she was ready. His silence paid off.
"It's a leap day, you know," she said.
"I know. Nick and I almost had a fist fight over it."
She frowned.
"You don't think there's anything special about this day?"
"I don't. Nothing particularly interesting has happened to me on this day, so I don't think of it any differently."
She wondered how to tell him what the day meant to her. Every leap day since the "accident" as she came to call it, she'd wonder about the day. She'd wonder if the year hadn't been a leap year and the day didn't exist, would her mother still have killed her father? Maybe if it wasn't a leap year and the day didn't happen, she could have figured out a way to get Laura out of the mess they were all in before she took such drastic measures. Things could have been different. But now, after 3 months away from the life she shared with her soon to be husband, from the only life she knew now, she was coming to terms with the fact that it happened. Nothing could have changed that. And she was starting to understand.
"All that business with my mom and dad...well, it happened on a leap day. Ever since then, I've been either studying or working to try to get the images out of my head. There haven't been many men in my life, as you know, and when we started this thing--really started it, not the 7 years before it all came together--it was another way of letting go. And I wasn't ready to let it go. But I realized something when I was with my mom. She's been through so much therapy, she's a completely different person now. She'll never be over it, but she's put it behind her. Her ghosts are free, and I want the same thing. I'm ready to bury my ghosts in the desert with the Mustang and move on. I want to marry you. I want a family with you. This sounds corny as hell, but it's a leap day, and, well...I'm ready to leap."
"That is corny," he said. She laughed. "But I'm behind you 100. You know if you ever need anything..."
"I know," she said. "I've always known that. It would be so much worse without you, Gil, I want you to know."
She inched closer to him and they shared a lingering kiss; one that would definitely have to be explored more thoroughly later on in the night. But they had things to talk about first. He told her about Warrick's troubles and that weird case with the bull. He even told her about the poem, which made him think of her even though it was written about a bull. She laughed and laughed about that one.
She told him about seeing her mother for the first time in 20 years, and how strange and wonderful it was. She told him about seeing her brother again for the first time in nearly a decade. She and her brother sat at the kitchen table while their mom made some chocolate chip cookies. It was almost too surreal for her to take.
"But we're going to keep in touch," she said. "We're going to keep in touch, and she's going to come here every now and then. She can't wait to meet you. I showed her your picture and she nearly collapsed. I think she's in love."
Eventually, when everything that needed to be said had been said, they curled up together, Hank by their side, to watch a movie. Things weren't perfect by any stretch. They never had been and they never would be. But they were together, and the ghosts were fading away. Things were the way they should have been, and that was okay for a leap day.