TITLE: Third Party, Impartial Witness

FANDOM: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

WARNING: Domestic violence. (Cath/Eddie)

NOTES: writers_choice: party

Lindsey POV.

She knows she mustn’t watch. That’s what momma always says – just close the door, Lindsey, Mom and Dad need to talk. See, she doesn’t say the words, but her eyes plead for her to stay away, shut the door, keep it all outside.

But she can’t sleep when glass smashes and wood cracks, when words she shouldn’t know are shouted through the house and a woman cries softly through it all – how could anyone sleep?

So she opens her door so a sliver of light falls through, and half an eye can see shadows and colours and blurs. The large blur strikes the slight one, and cries of passionate anger and despair accompany each act of shadow puppetry, until the score fades and silence settles like sand.

Sometimes, she wishes she could be the slight shadow, just so she doesn’t have to see welts of red and handprints of blue disappear under make-up before school. She wants to share the pain, to take it away, but she must always hide behind the door, stay away, stay away.

Yet she knows her duty in this drama – she must stand by her sliver, she must bear witness. For what else can she do?