Chapter 11
Jul. 1st, 2007 06:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizwontcryTitle: Since I Met You - Chapter 11
Author: Butliz
Rating: Teen
Spoilers: Everything through 7x24
Disclaimer: I so don't own them.
Summary: Sara's mother is sick, and Sara feels like she's finally ready to face the past. But how will that effect her future? A look at Sara and Grissom's past, present and future. As always, thanks to the tireless beta-ness of GSFanatic.
Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
A/N - As always, thanks for the feeback and stuff. I'm really enjoying writing this story and I certainly hope you enjoy reading it. This chapter isn't exactly happy good times, but I think you'll find that everything works out in the end.
Vegas, year four
She couldn't believe it had come to this. Her fourth year in Vegas started as well as it ended, which is to say badly.
The officer who pulled her over and gave her the breathalyzer was rude and nasty and she wanted like hell to hate him, but when he saw her badge when she pulled out her wallet to give him her license, he softened. The officer did not want to get another fellow member of the department in trouble, and besides, they had only just lowered the limit. So he told her what he would do. The other option was a night in the drunk tank and a permanent mark on her record, and she almost would have taken that over the alternative if she hadn't been so ashamed.
While she was waiting for Grissom to come pick her up, she thought about the past year. How she asked Grissom out and how his brutal "no" would follow her around for months. She'd have nightmares sometimes about that "No." The "no" seemed to haunt her even when she started to have even one moment of happiness.
She thought about that night, a few months after she asked him out, when he pinned her against the wall, after she asked him to, of course, to show how wax was transferred from victim to suspect. Pin me down, she told him. He nodded and grabbed her hands while she simulated how the victim struggled. And then when she mentioned the suspect put his palms down on the sheet for leverage, Grissom's hands traveled down, slightly grazing her arm, to put them around her waist. The graze lasted approximately 2 seconds. She couldn't stop thinking about it for months. In her dreams, the moment would never end with just the graze. The dream never ended with her stepping out of his arms that were nearly wrapped around her to blab about how she always seemed to overtalk when she was around him. In her dream, after the graze, he kept looking in her eyes and somehow became hypnotized by her existence. Even though the door was wide open and anyone could have seen them, he moved closer to her so they were eye to eye, and before she knew it, lips to lips. In her dreams, the kiss was always the most sensual experience of her life.
Her thoughts then turned to where they would inevitably go every time she closed her eyes; to when she stood behind the glass of the interrogation room, listening to him reject her over and over and over again to a bitter stranger, the whole time thinking how could he not know that I'm standing right here? The man, a Dr. Lurie, told Grissom, "I'm still here." And Grissom replied, "Are you?" And Sara wondered the same thing. Was she still there, pining after a man who couldn't even admit to her face to face that while he had feelings for her, he just couldn't...wouldn't act on them?
But what really stung the most, what really drove her crazy beyond anything...he STILL had that look in his eye. Whenever she looked him in the eye, which was not often these days because she couldn't handle it, the look was there. It was a look of longing, a look she knew all too well. And it was breaking her.
It wasn't just Grissom that she had a problem with. She hadn't made any friends in Vegas, really, and found herself alone more often than not. When it got to be that time of the month where she was maxed out on overtime and had nothing to do but go home and think about her life, she wondered what happened to her over the past couple of years. She liked her co-workers but they didn't hang out much socially, other than the occasional breakfast at the diner down the street. There was Hank, who she hadn't spoken to since their awkward exchange in the hallway. And that was it, really. From time to time, her friends in California would call her and they'd talk for a few minutes, but that was about all the social interaction she would have.
There was the promotion. She and Nick were up for a promotion, and she thought she deserved it. Her whole life was work, and she definitely thought this qualified her for the promotion. It seemed to her that Nick didn't even care about getting it, and this drove her crazy. And then she found out first that the promotion wouldn't happen, and then she found out that if it did happen, it would go to Nick, she was not happy. She had to think it somehow had something to do with Grissom and their strange, hurtful relationship.
And when all those thoughts jumbled around in her head for so long she was sick and tired of having them, she would always think about her mother. She missed her mom, believe it or not. She wondered what her mother would have to say about everything that was happening to her. Laura Sidle was out of prison now, had been for a year or two. Sara knew this because her long estranged brother sent her a newspaper clipping about the whole ordeal. The word "forgiveness" had been on her mind a long time, but she wasn't ready to deal with it yet. There was too much unresolved drama in her life to even think about doing something about her mother.
Now she could add a new problem to the list: burgeoning alcoholic. Well, why not? It was in her blood, wasn't it? It was what made her father beat her mother and brother repeatedly over the years. It was what her brother turned to at an early age to get through the long days and nights of abuse. It was what her mother did when no one was looking, so when her husband came home it made the beatings a little less painful. She was just a product of her genes, right? So why not drink?
Alcohol wasn't usually what she turned to when the nights were long and the days sleepless. She had her time as a binge drinker in college like most students did, and then she got over it. But she found herself going to the liquor store and stocking up after the case with Dr. Lurie. The victim had been a nurse, and she couldn't help but notice how she and the girl had more than just a faint resemblance. She didn't think much about it until Catherine commented on it, and she let her thoughts wander to where they never should have gone. Was that...no, it couldn't be why Grissom seemed to be taking this case so personally, why he'd make up some excuse to get off the phone with her when she called, why he even seemed to be staring at her when there was no reason to even be looking in her direction.
Based on a hair Grissom found while going through the nurse's jewelry collection, they found their suspect, Dr. Lurie. Sara was always in for a good interrogation, so she watched the whole thing from behind the glass in the interrogation room. Grissom was mostly silent while Brass interrogated the doctor, who deflected every question with a clever answer. When it looked like Lurie was going to get away scott free, Grissom gave the speech that Sara would remember for the rest of her life.
Dr. Lurie was apparently involved sexually with Debbie, the nurse, and it was their theory that he killed her and her young lover, also a doctor, in a jealous rage. When Grissom spoke, he was almost empathetic with the doctor, which sickened Sara to her very core.
Grissom spoke slowly, introspectively.
"It's sad, isn't it, doc? Guys like us. Couple of middle-aged men who've allowed their work to consume their lives. The only time we ever touch other people is when we're wearing our latex gloves. We wake up one day and realize that for fifty years we haven't really lived at all. But then, all of a sudden we get a second chance. Somebody young and beautiful shows up. Somebody...we could care about. She offers us a new life with her, but we have a big decision to make, right? Because we have to risk everything we've worked for in order to have her."
He paused for a second. What he said next, 4 simple words that should never have meant so much, would break Sara in two.
"I couldn't do it..."
And then she tuned out. She didn't care what else he had to say to this man who was obviously guilty. He couldn't do it, huh? Well, if that was the case, neither could she.
So a part of her was closed, sealed off. Another part of her, the part of her that she figured was destined to become an alcoholic, started making itself known. She knew this was not going to be good when Brass took notice of her sucking down cough drops at a crime scene like there was no tomorrow. Nick noticed, too, but it didn't seem to raise any warning signals in his mind.
Brass took her aside later. He confronted her about the cough drops and she tried to tell him it was because she had a cold. In reality, she had a few drinks after shift, not expecting to be called in a few hours later.
Brass nodded when she told him about the cold.
"I understand colds. You know, back in Jersey when I was getting it from both ends, from my wife and my work, uh ... things started to get heavy. I started "medicating". Cure my cold. And, um, and god forbid I had an early morning rollout and I had that tell-tale breath, you know what I mean? So I would dodge my supe, and I started popping cough drops."
Sara knew she was busted. All she could say was, "Huh."
"I mean, what I'm trying to say is that...there's more problems than answers in the bottom of a bottle, believe me."
Sara brushed him off at the time, but she thought about these words while she was sitting in that uncomfortable chair, waiting for the man she wanted to see less than anyone else in the world right now. She thought about how easy it was to pick up a bottle and let it solve her problems for her, but when she woke up in the morning with nothing but a headache, the problems were still always there.
This is rock bottom, she thought. It has to be. When she came to Vegas, she had no idea it was going to be like this. Had she known, she would have spared everyone the trouble and stayed in San Francisco, where she obviously belonged. Maybe she and Chris would have been married by now, talking about kids with a gleam in their eye.
But she knew that wouldn't be the life for her. It had always been Gil Grissom, and even if she never did wind up with him, at least she went down fighting.
She heard footsteps coming into the room. She didn't look up; she knew it was him. She could only imagine how disappointed he was in her.
He sat in the chair next to her. She still looked down at her feet. And then he took her hand in his, and said, "Come on, I'll take you home."
These simple words, that simple touch, was all it took for her to realize she was heading down the wrong path. There was no disappointment in those words, only empathy. He cared about her. He might have even loved her. But he was protecting both of them by not taking it any further than that. It was heartbreaking, but it was refreshing at the same time. It was what she needed to start getting herself together.
*************
Grissom didn't know what to expect when he walked in the room to find Sara waiting for him. He imagined he was the last person she wanted to see. He was glad the officer called him; he would be horrified if Sara had been taken to jail.
She looked so alone and sad sitting in that chair. What brought her to this point? She was always so careful and thoughtful of her actions. His heart was breaking for her, and not for the first time.
He sat next to her and held her hand. It was cold where he thought it would be hot. She refused to look at him, and he didn't blame her. He couldn't help but blame himself; he put her through a lot this year with the promotion and everything else.
Everything else, he thought. That couldn't even begin to cover it.
Pin me down, she had told him a few months ago. And he did, not even thinking about it. But he thought about it later. Sometimes it was all he could think about. How they were so close he could feel her breath on his face. How her forearm felt when he slightly grazed it. How he wanted to kiss her so much it actually physically hurt him. And how confused he was when she stepped out of his arms and said awkwardly, "Grissom, I need to talk to you about something."
"Go ahead," he said, not sure what to expect. She brought up the promotion, which he wish didn't exist. She and Nick were both going for it, and to choose between them was like choosing which of his favorite cockroaches to race. He didn't want to.
"About that. I, um...I needed to know... I wanted to make sure, rather, that anything that happened or didn't happen between us won't be a factor."
His confusion must have shown clearly on his face, because she rushed to say, "Never mind. I shouldn't have said anything."
She turned to leave, the most awkward of smiles pasted on her face.
"I, um...I'm always overtalking around you." And then she escaped, fleeing from her obvious embarrassment, which he found confusing but completely charming and endearing.
What nobody seemed to notice was how he was doing his best to change. Not just because of Sara, but because everything around him was changing and he thought maybe it was time to adjust to his surroundings. A case called him out to Jackpot, Nevada where he reluctantly bonded with some of the locals. One of them asked him, "You don't keep any secrets, Mr. Grissom?"
He told him, "I used to. I'm trying to change." And he was. He was trying to have more of a sense of humor about things, like everybody else seemed to have. He tried his hand at being more political, like Catherine always insisted he do. He even tried going home when the shift was over, which he didn't really enjoy all that much. He liked having a sense of accomplishment, and that was hard to do while sitting at home.
All that changed with the case of Dr. Lurie and Debbie Marlin. Maybe he'd been trying to deny his feelings for Sara. Maybe he'd been thinking about her too much. Maybe he felt guilty for saying no when she asked him out. Whatever it was, the case made him doubt his sanity more than any other case he'd ever taken on before.
It was a gruesome murder, a little more disturbing than the ones the CSIs saw on a daily basis. The victims were found in trash cans in the alley, cut up into many pieces and put in plastic bags. And as soon as he saw the victim, Debbie, lying in a strange position in her bathroom, surrounded by a pool of blood, he couldn't help but notice how similar she looked to Sara. And that's when it started.
When he stepped out the door to give the team instructions, there was a frenzy going on outside. EMTs, the media, neighbors; everybody wanted a piece of this crime scene. But the only person he saw when he opened the door was Sara. She seemed to be looking right through him. However, Brass was standing next to Sara and figured he was looking at him, so he walked over to him and said, "Ready for us?"
From that moment, Grissom tried his hardest to stay away from Sara. He assigned her the perimeter of the house instead of anything inside the house. This irritated her, but at that point he couldn't care less. When she called him later with news that she found a stray hair with a skin tag, all he wanted to do was get off the phone with her. He told her to give the hair to Greg.
"Yeah, I did. Hey, do you want me to come over there and give you a hand?"
That was the very last thing he wanted.
"No, I-I'm fine. I'll-I'll, uh ... I'll talk to you back at the lab." He quickly hung up.
The case consumed him. He was well into his third shift, 24 hours with no sleep and barely anything to eat, when he found a hair by Debbie's jewelry box. They eventually matched the hair to Dr. Lurie, who was brought in for questioning.
As Brass made a case for this man being the killer, Grissom felt an empathy for the doctor that was simply disgusting. The man fell in love with a younger woman, a woman who wanted to give him everything he ever wanted. And then the woman left him for someone younger, who was better prepared to give her what she wanted. It was Grissom's worst nightmare, and one of the biggest reasons he never pursued anything with Sara. If he had her and things worked out, he would be the happiest man alive. But if he had her and lost her...he couldn't even think about everything he could lose.
When he had enough of Lurie dodging the questions, he began to speak. He knew Brass was in the room. He even knew it was possible Sara was watching from behind the glass. He knew she was fond of a good interrogation. But at that point, after not even remembering the last time he slept, after being so consumed with thoughts of a woman he was so dangerously in love with, he no longer cared.
After Brass explained his theory of why Lurie killed the young nurse, Lurie's lawyer said, "Thank you for your time and your theories, but you said it yourself: You don't have a case." He looked at Lurie. "Doctor."
And then Grissom heard himself say, "It's sad, isn't it, doc? Guys like us. Couple of middle-aged men who've allowed their work to consume their lives..." and he kept talking, and he didn't care who was listening. It was only later, right before he finally was able to drift off to sleep, did he allow himself to think she was listening. And what horrified him the most was that he hoped she was listening, because then she would know. She would finally know.
*************
Now, he put his arm around Sara and walked her to his car. She quietly told him where she lived and they drove there in silence. There were so many things he wanted to say, but he didn't want to bother her. He could only guess what she was feeling, and he didn't want to make it worse.
But when they got to her apartment, when she opened the door to leave he put a hand on her arm.
"Wait," he said.
She waited.
"Sara, I'm...I'm sorry for...well, I'm sorry. I haven't been the best friend I could have been to you, and I sincerely apologize to you for that."
She didn't say anything, just stared out the window, probably trying to plot her escape.
"I think you should take some time off. You're probably the best CSI I have, and if you need some time to get your head together, I'm more than willing to give it to you."
She nodded. "I think I will. I think it's come to the point where I need to."
"Can you tell me what happened?" He asked her gently.
"I grew up with alcoholics," she said. "It seemed like the natural way to find an answer to a problem. Tonight, after I went out with Nick and Warrick, I stopped at a bar and had a few more drinks. Then I drove home. It wasn't smart. It was reckless. I realize I have a problem, and I want to do whatever it takes to fix it."
He was impressed she understood the consequences of her actions. Still, his heart broke for her. If he was a different man, he would hug her and tell her everything would be okay.
Hell, he thought. I'm not a different man. I never will be a different man. So why not do it anyway?
He got out of the car and quickly came over to the passenger side. He opened her door, and eventually she figured she was to step out of the car. He walked her to the door of her apartment, thinking about how much things had changed since he walked her to the door so many years ago at Berkeley. He wanted to kiss her as much now as he did back then. Instead, he gave her a hug. He wrapped his arms around her and held her to close to him. At first, she was too shocked to hug him back. After she figured out he wasn't going to stop, she wrapped her arms around him and put her head on his shoulder. He felt warm drops of liquid on his shoulder: her tears.
"It's going to be okay," he said. And for the first time, he might have actually meant it.
Author: Butliz
Rating: Teen
Spoilers: Everything through 7x24
Disclaimer: I so don't own them.
Summary: Sara's mother is sick, and Sara feels like she's finally ready to face the past. But how will that effect her future? A look at Sara and Grissom's past, present and future. As always, thanks to the tireless beta-ness of GSFanatic.
Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
A/N - As always, thanks for the feeback and stuff. I'm really enjoying writing this story and I certainly hope you enjoy reading it. This chapter isn't exactly happy good times, but I think you'll find that everything works out in the end.
Vegas, year four
She couldn't believe it had come to this. Her fourth year in Vegas started as well as it ended, which is to say badly.
The officer who pulled her over and gave her the breathalyzer was rude and nasty and she wanted like hell to hate him, but when he saw her badge when she pulled out her wallet to give him her license, he softened. The officer did not want to get another fellow member of the department in trouble, and besides, they had only just lowered the limit. So he told her what he would do. The other option was a night in the drunk tank and a permanent mark on her record, and she almost would have taken that over the alternative if she hadn't been so ashamed.
While she was waiting for Grissom to come pick her up, she thought about the past year. How she asked Grissom out and how his brutal "no" would follow her around for months. She'd have nightmares sometimes about that "No." The "no" seemed to haunt her even when she started to have even one moment of happiness.
She thought about that night, a few months after she asked him out, when he pinned her against the wall, after she asked him to, of course, to show how wax was transferred from victim to suspect. Pin me down, she told him. He nodded and grabbed her hands while she simulated how the victim struggled. And then when she mentioned the suspect put his palms down on the sheet for leverage, Grissom's hands traveled down, slightly grazing her arm, to put them around her waist. The graze lasted approximately 2 seconds. She couldn't stop thinking about it for months. In her dreams, the moment would never end with just the graze. The dream never ended with her stepping out of his arms that were nearly wrapped around her to blab about how she always seemed to overtalk when she was around him. In her dream, after the graze, he kept looking in her eyes and somehow became hypnotized by her existence. Even though the door was wide open and anyone could have seen them, he moved closer to her so they were eye to eye, and before she knew it, lips to lips. In her dreams, the kiss was always the most sensual experience of her life.
Her thoughts then turned to where they would inevitably go every time she closed her eyes; to when she stood behind the glass of the interrogation room, listening to him reject her over and over and over again to a bitter stranger, the whole time thinking how could he not know that I'm standing right here? The man, a Dr. Lurie, told Grissom, "I'm still here." And Grissom replied, "Are you?" And Sara wondered the same thing. Was she still there, pining after a man who couldn't even admit to her face to face that while he had feelings for her, he just couldn't...wouldn't act on them?
But what really stung the most, what really drove her crazy beyond anything...he STILL had that look in his eye. Whenever she looked him in the eye, which was not often these days because she couldn't handle it, the look was there. It was a look of longing, a look she knew all too well. And it was breaking her.
It wasn't just Grissom that she had a problem with. She hadn't made any friends in Vegas, really, and found herself alone more often than not. When it got to be that time of the month where she was maxed out on overtime and had nothing to do but go home and think about her life, she wondered what happened to her over the past couple of years. She liked her co-workers but they didn't hang out much socially, other than the occasional breakfast at the diner down the street. There was Hank, who she hadn't spoken to since their awkward exchange in the hallway. And that was it, really. From time to time, her friends in California would call her and they'd talk for a few minutes, but that was about all the social interaction she would have.
There was the promotion. She and Nick were up for a promotion, and she thought she deserved it. Her whole life was work, and she definitely thought this qualified her for the promotion. It seemed to her that Nick didn't even care about getting it, and this drove her crazy. And then she found out first that the promotion wouldn't happen, and then she found out that if it did happen, it would go to Nick, she was not happy. She had to think it somehow had something to do with Grissom and their strange, hurtful relationship.
And when all those thoughts jumbled around in her head for so long she was sick and tired of having them, she would always think about her mother. She missed her mom, believe it or not. She wondered what her mother would have to say about everything that was happening to her. Laura Sidle was out of prison now, had been for a year or two. Sara knew this because her long estranged brother sent her a newspaper clipping about the whole ordeal. The word "forgiveness" had been on her mind a long time, but she wasn't ready to deal with it yet. There was too much unresolved drama in her life to even think about doing something about her mother.
Now she could add a new problem to the list: burgeoning alcoholic. Well, why not? It was in her blood, wasn't it? It was what made her father beat her mother and brother repeatedly over the years. It was what her brother turned to at an early age to get through the long days and nights of abuse. It was what her mother did when no one was looking, so when her husband came home it made the beatings a little less painful. She was just a product of her genes, right? So why not drink?
Alcohol wasn't usually what she turned to when the nights were long and the days sleepless. She had her time as a binge drinker in college like most students did, and then she got over it. But she found herself going to the liquor store and stocking up after the case with Dr. Lurie. The victim had been a nurse, and she couldn't help but notice how she and the girl had more than just a faint resemblance. She didn't think much about it until Catherine commented on it, and she let her thoughts wander to where they never should have gone. Was that...no, it couldn't be why Grissom seemed to be taking this case so personally, why he'd make up some excuse to get off the phone with her when she called, why he even seemed to be staring at her when there was no reason to even be looking in her direction.
Based on a hair Grissom found while going through the nurse's jewelry collection, they found their suspect, Dr. Lurie. Sara was always in for a good interrogation, so she watched the whole thing from behind the glass in the interrogation room. Grissom was mostly silent while Brass interrogated the doctor, who deflected every question with a clever answer. When it looked like Lurie was going to get away scott free, Grissom gave the speech that Sara would remember for the rest of her life.
Dr. Lurie was apparently involved sexually with Debbie, the nurse, and it was their theory that he killed her and her young lover, also a doctor, in a jealous rage. When Grissom spoke, he was almost empathetic with the doctor, which sickened Sara to her very core.
Grissom spoke slowly, introspectively.
"It's sad, isn't it, doc? Guys like us. Couple of middle-aged men who've allowed their work to consume their lives. The only time we ever touch other people is when we're wearing our latex gloves. We wake up one day and realize that for fifty years we haven't really lived at all. But then, all of a sudden we get a second chance. Somebody young and beautiful shows up. Somebody...we could care about. She offers us a new life with her, but we have a big decision to make, right? Because we have to risk everything we've worked for in order to have her."
He paused for a second. What he said next, 4 simple words that should never have meant so much, would break Sara in two.
"I couldn't do it..."
And then she tuned out. She didn't care what else he had to say to this man who was obviously guilty. He couldn't do it, huh? Well, if that was the case, neither could she.
So a part of her was closed, sealed off. Another part of her, the part of her that she figured was destined to become an alcoholic, started making itself known. She knew this was not going to be good when Brass took notice of her sucking down cough drops at a crime scene like there was no tomorrow. Nick noticed, too, but it didn't seem to raise any warning signals in his mind.
Brass took her aside later. He confronted her about the cough drops and she tried to tell him it was because she had a cold. In reality, she had a few drinks after shift, not expecting to be called in a few hours later.
Brass nodded when she told him about the cold.
"I understand colds. You know, back in Jersey when I was getting it from both ends, from my wife and my work, uh ... things started to get heavy. I started "medicating". Cure my cold. And, um, and god forbid I had an early morning rollout and I had that tell-tale breath, you know what I mean? So I would dodge my supe, and I started popping cough drops."
Sara knew she was busted. All she could say was, "Huh."
"I mean, what I'm trying to say is that...there's more problems than answers in the bottom of a bottle, believe me."
Sara brushed him off at the time, but she thought about these words while she was sitting in that uncomfortable chair, waiting for the man she wanted to see less than anyone else in the world right now. She thought about how easy it was to pick up a bottle and let it solve her problems for her, but when she woke up in the morning with nothing but a headache, the problems were still always there.
This is rock bottom, she thought. It has to be. When she came to Vegas, she had no idea it was going to be like this. Had she known, she would have spared everyone the trouble and stayed in San Francisco, where she obviously belonged. Maybe she and Chris would have been married by now, talking about kids with a gleam in their eye.
But she knew that wouldn't be the life for her. It had always been Gil Grissom, and even if she never did wind up with him, at least she went down fighting.
She heard footsteps coming into the room. She didn't look up; she knew it was him. She could only imagine how disappointed he was in her.
He sat in the chair next to her. She still looked down at her feet. And then he took her hand in his, and said, "Come on, I'll take you home."
These simple words, that simple touch, was all it took for her to realize she was heading down the wrong path. There was no disappointment in those words, only empathy. He cared about her. He might have even loved her. But he was protecting both of them by not taking it any further than that. It was heartbreaking, but it was refreshing at the same time. It was what she needed to start getting herself together.
*************
Grissom didn't know what to expect when he walked in the room to find Sara waiting for him. He imagined he was the last person she wanted to see. He was glad the officer called him; he would be horrified if Sara had been taken to jail.
She looked so alone and sad sitting in that chair. What brought her to this point? She was always so careful and thoughtful of her actions. His heart was breaking for her, and not for the first time.
He sat next to her and held her hand. It was cold where he thought it would be hot. She refused to look at him, and he didn't blame her. He couldn't help but blame himself; he put her through a lot this year with the promotion and everything else.
Everything else, he thought. That couldn't even begin to cover it.
Pin me down, she had told him a few months ago. And he did, not even thinking about it. But he thought about it later. Sometimes it was all he could think about. How they were so close he could feel her breath on his face. How her forearm felt when he slightly grazed it. How he wanted to kiss her so much it actually physically hurt him. And how confused he was when she stepped out of his arms and said awkwardly, "Grissom, I need to talk to you about something."
"Go ahead," he said, not sure what to expect. She brought up the promotion, which he wish didn't exist. She and Nick were both going for it, and to choose between them was like choosing which of his favorite cockroaches to race. He didn't want to.
"About that. I, um...I needed to know... I wanted to make sure, rather, that anything that happened or didn't happen between us won't be a factor."
His confusion must have shown clearly on his face, because she rushed to say, "Never mind. I shouldn't have said anything."
She turned to leave, the most awkward of smiles pasted on her face.
"I, um...I'm always overtalking around you." And then she escaped, fleeing from her obvious embarrassment, which he found confusing but completely charming and endearing.
What nobody seemed to notice was how he was doing his best to change. Not just because of Sara, but because everything around him was changing and he thought maybe it was time to adjust to his surroundings. A case called him out to Jackpot, Nevada where he reluctantly bonded with some of the locals. One of them asked him, "You don't keep any secrets, Mr. Grissom?"
He told him, "I used to. I'm trying to change." And he was. He was trying to have more of a sense of humor about things, like everybody else seemed to have. He tried his hand at being more political, like Catherine always insisted he do. He even tried going home when the shift was over, which he didn't really enjoy all that much. He liked having a sense of accomplishment, and that was hard to do while sitting at home.
All that changed with the case of Dr. Lurie and Debbie Marlin. Maybe he'd been trying to deny his feelings for Sara. Maybe he'd been thinking about her too much. Maybe he felt guilty for saying no when she asked him out. Whatever it was, the case made him doubt his sanity more than any other case he'd ever taken on before.
It was a gruesome murder, a little more disturbing than the ones the CSIs saw on a daily basis. The victims were found in trash cans in the alley, cut up into many pieces and put in plastic bags. And as soon as he saw the victim, Debbie, lying in a strange position in her bathroom, surrounded by a pool of blood, he couldn't help but notice how similar she looked to Sara. And that's when it started.
When he stepped out the door to give the team instructions, there was a frenzy going on outside. EMTs, the media, neighbors; everybody wanted a piece of this crime scene. But the only person he saw when he opened the door was Sara. She seemed to be looking right through him. However, Brass was standing next to Sara and figured he was looking at him, so he walked over to him and said, "Ready for us?"
From that moment, Grissom tried his hardest to stay away from Sara. He assigned her the perimeter of the house instead of anything inside the house. This irritated her, but at that point he couldn't care less. When she called him later with news that she found a stray hair with a skin tag, all he wanted to do was get off the phone with her. He told her to give the hair to Greg.
"Yeah, I did. Hey, do you want me to come over there and give you a hand?"
That was the very last thing he wanted.
"No, I-I'm fine. I'll-I'll, uh ... I'll talk to you back at the lab." He quickly hung up.
The case consumed him. He was well into his third shift, 24 hours with no sleep and barely anything to eat, when he found a hair by Debbie's jewelry box. They eventually matched the hair to Dr. Lurie, who was brought in for questioning.
As Brass made a case for this man being the killer, Grissom felt an empathy for the doctor that was simply disgusting. The man fell in love with a younger woman, a woman who wanted to give him everything he ever wanted. And then the woman left him for someone younger, who was better prepared to give her what she wanted. It was Grissom's worst nightmare, and one of the biggest reasons he never pursued anything with Sara. If he had her and things worked out, he would be the happiest man alive. But if he had her and lost her...he couldn't even think about everything he could lose.
When he had enough of Lurie dodging the questions, he began to speak. He knew Brass was in the room. He even knew it was possible Sara was watching from behind the glass. He knew she was fond of a good interrogation. But at that point, after not even remembering the last time he slept, after being so consumed with thoughts of a woman he was so dangerously in love with, he no longer cared.
After Brass explained his theory of why Lurie killed the young nurse, Lurie's lawyer said, "Thank you for your time and your theories, but you said it yourself: You don't have a case." He looked at Lurie. "Doctor."
And then Grissom heard himself say, "It's sad, isn't it, doc? Guys like us. Couple of middle-aged men who've allowed their work to consume their lives..." and he kept talking, and he didn't care who was listening. It was only later, right before he finally was able to drift off to sleep, did he allow himself to think she was listening. And what horrified him the most was that he hoped she was listening, because then she would know. She would finally know.
*************
Now, he put his arm around Sara and walked her to his car. She quietly told him where she lived and they drove there in silence. There were so many things he wanted to say, but he didn't want to bother her. He could only guess what she was feeling, and he didn't want to make it worse.
But when they got to her apartment, when she opened the door to leave he put a hand on her arm.
"Wait," he said.
She waited.
"Sara, I'm...I'm sorry for...well, I'm sorry. I haven't been the best friend I could have been to you, and I sincerely apologize to you for that."
She didn't say anything, just stared out the window, probably trying to plot her escape.
"I think you should take some time off. You're probably the best CSI I have, and if you need some time to get your head together, I'm more than willing to give it to you."
She nodded. "I think I will. I think it's come to the point where I need to."
"Can you tell me what happened?" He asked her gently.
"I grew up with alcoholics," she said. "It seemed like the natural way to find an answer to a problem. Tonight, after I went out with Nick and Warrick, I stopped at a bar and had a few more drinks. Then I drove home. It wasn't smart. It was reckless. I realize I have a problem, and I want to do whatever it takes to fix it."
He was impressed she understood the consequences of her actions. Still, his heart broke for her. If he was a different man, he would hug her and tell her everything would be okay.
Hell, he thought. I'm not a different man. I never will be a different man. So why not do it anyway?
He got out of the car and quickly came over to the passenger side. He opened her door, and eventually she figured she was to step out of the car. He walked her to the door of her apartment, thinking about how much things had changed since he walked her to the door so many years ago at Berkeley. He wanted to kiss her as much now as he did back then. Instead, he gave her a hug. He wrapped his arms around her and held her to close to him. At first, she was too shocked to hug him back. After she figured out he wasn't going to stop, she wrapped her arms around him and put her head on his shoulder. He felt warm drops of liquid on his shoulder: her tears.
"It's going to be okay," he said. And for the first time, he might have actually meant it.
