Fandom: CSI Rating: R Pairing: G/S Summary: A sequel to Rollercoaster, which really should be read first. Disclaimer: Some of the characters and situations in this story belong to Alliance Atlantis, CBS, Anthony Zuicker and other entities, and I do not have permission to borrow them.  Others strongly resemble characters that sort of belong to ABC, though I seriously doubt anyone cares at this point.  The rest belong to me, and if you want to play with them, you have to ask me first.  No infringement is intended in any way, and this story is not for profit.  Any errors are mine, all mine, no you can't have any.   Spoilers: general fifth season through "Unbearable" Note: This is an AU futurefic that includes a number of original characters.      ********* “Are you sure about this?” Sara asked in an undertone as they approached the restaurant. Grissom shrugged, belying his own discomfort, but held her hand a little more tightly. “I’d rather spend the evening with you alone, but it’ll be nice to see everyone at once.” Sara snickered a little, though her grip was as strong, and he knew she was nervous too. “Yeah, I guess. I'm still trying to figure out how we got talked into this.” Grissom reached forward to pull open the door for her, wondering a little himself. They'd been double-teamed, Greg calling Sara and Brass phoning Grissom, and before either of them quite realized it, they'd been talked into dinner with “everybody,” as Greg put it. Grissom wasn't quite sure how many people that meant, and braced himself to walk into a mob. But there were virtues in being early. Only Greg and Nick were sitting at the big private room table so far, looking a little lost among so many empty places. Both of them rose, grinning, as Grissom and Sara approached, and Grissom had to admit that it pleased him to see Sara so welcomed by her old friends. His spine relaxed a little as they found seats, Greg pulling Sara down into the end place next to his own chair with a laugh, and Nick rolling his eyes. “Just how many people are coming to this...thing?” Sara asked as Grissom sat on her other side. Greg started counting, holding up fingers. “You guys, us, Warrick, Cath, Bobby--” “Brass, Jacquie, Archie...Hodges has a date, if you can believe that...” Nick put in. “Doc Robbins, and we asked Judy but she had to work late tonight.” Greg glanced over at Grissom, slightly apologetic. “We didn't ask the rest of Night because none of them know Sara.” Grissom shrugged, not upset by the exclusion, but before he could answer a waiter came by for drink orders. As the man left again, Sara shook her head. “Let's hope they all like Mexican.” “Hey, El Rosale's is primo food,” Nick protested. “And if anyone doesn't, they can just eat chips and dip.” “The salsa here is almost a meal in itself,” Grissom agreed. “Pair it with a beer, and you're set,” Warrick added, appearing behind Greg and leaning down to give Sara a quick hug before pulling out a chair next to Nick. “How're you guys doing?” Sara laughed. “Fine. I've only been here two days and I'm already keeping sunscreen in my bag again.” Grissom glanced up as Greg teased Sara lightly about sunburn, and saw Catherine framed by the doorway, poised in the act of stepping inside. One hand was wrapped around the strap of her shoulderbag, and her eyes were a little wide, but she moved forward without hesitation. “Hey guys.” A peculiar tension hung in the air for a moment, but Sara broke it by standing and coming over to give Catherine a light hug. “Hey, Cath. It's good to see you again.” Grissom bit back a smile as the other men around the table breathed again. Apparently they hadn't been privy to the fact that Catherine had sent Sara a written apology not long after their blowup in the lab hallway, shortly after Sara left. Be fair. You wouldn't know if Sara hadn't told you. He doubted, watching them sit down, that the women had had further communication; Catherine seemed a bit wary, and Sara's smile was more polite than warm. But a few minutes of conversation seemed to relax them both, and eventually Catherine caught Grissom's eye and gave him a look that combined warm approval with more than a touch of smugness. Grissom, amused, simply gave her a wink back. Catherine blinked, and next to her, Warrick chuckled. The first round of drinks arrived, further orders were taken, and the conversation stayed light as more people trickled in. Sara kept standing up to greet people, though she gave only Robbins a hug, the older man beaming at the sight of her. “You've been gone too long,” he chided her gently, returning her embrace with one arm. “David will be sorry he missed you.” “I need to call him,” Sara admitted, taking her seat once more. “Is that everybody?” Greg asked, leaning forward to check that all the seats were filled. “Okay. Tell us!” “Tell you what?” Sara asked, glancing around at all the attentive eyes. “How you two got together,” Catherine said, as if it were obvious. “We're all dying to know!” Sara glanced at Grissom, and as their eyes met in amusement he knew they had the same thought. Her hand slid over his leg underneath the table as they turned back to their friends. “No,” they both said. The outrage was immediate, but through the babble Grissom saw both Robbins and Brass sitting back and watching the fuss. “Oh, come on!” Catherine protested, her voice rising above the general complaint. “Gil, you disappear mysteriously for half a year, and come back with Sara--you have to tell us!” “No, I don't,” he returned, easily. “And I didn't 'come back' with her. She came on her own.” He looked over at his lover, who smiled at him. Catherine sputtered. Greg pointed at Sara. “I know you two met up when Grissom went east for a conference last summer,” he said accusingly. Sara shrugged. “That's true. We ran into each other in Pennsylvania.” “And...?” Nick encouraged when she said nothing more. “And that's it,” Grissom supplied. “I decided to spend my leave of absence on the East Coast, and...here we are.” Nick looked disbelieving and Warrick amused, but before anyone could press further, two long buffet carts were rolled into the room and the covers removed, and apparently everyone was too hungry to wait. As they lined up with their plates, Catherine leaned up to speak in Grissom's ear. “I'll get it out of you eventually, you know.” Sara, grinning, spoke up on the older woman's other side. “I don't think you will, Cath.” Catherine blushed. The meal was long and merry; their friends gave up the pestering after a few more tries, and switched to teasing, which didn't bother Grissom. What mattered was that Sara was having a good time bantering with Warrick and joking with Archie, and he kept stealing glances at her happy face and bright eyes. It took Grissom until halfway through the meal to realize that he was having a good time too. Things finally wound down after dessert and coffee, people trickling away to prepare for work or sleep. Sara thanked the conspirators--Greg, Nick, and Warrick--with a hug each, and then they escaped into the cool night. “That was fun,” Sara said as they headed for Grissom's car. He put an arm around her waist. “It was,” he agreed. “I missed them.” Sara sighed, but it wasn't an unhappy sound. “So did I,” she admitted. “How much time do you have?” Grissom glanced at his watch. “About ninety minutes.” “Just enough time to go home and get changed, in other words.” Sara laughed a little. “I'll feel like a slacker, all alone with nothing to do but read journals.” Grissom opened the car door for her. “You could sleep,” he pointed out patiently. “Oh, I will, eventually.” She slid into the seat, and he shut the door. Sara wandered around the townhouse restlessly. Grissom had left for the lab, giving her a long kiss at the door that told her he probably wouldn't be putting in any overtime that shift, but Sara wasn't sleepy yet despite the big dinner. I could work on organizing my papers. But the thought didn't really appeal. Sara wanted to repaint her little office room before she got set up in it. And nearly all her other things were in place already. Finally she decided to put on some music, choosing an album of piano solos from Grissom's rather eclectic collection, and settled down cross-legged in front of his bookcases to investigate. There were the expected long rows of journals, there were the books on bugs and forensics, there was the complete set of Shakespeare, but Sara was intrigued to find a variety of classic fiction and some really obscure biographies. After a while spent paging through various volumes, she came back to herself to realize that the CD was finished and her legs were falling asleep. Choosing two novels from the shelves, Sara rose and stretched and decided. She switched CDs, then went and rummaged in one of the boxes she'd stored in the walk-in closet, appreciating the fact that Grissom had installed speakers in his bedroom. Ten minutes later, she stepped into the bathtub in the hall bathroom, shivering pleasurably as she slid down into the hot water that was cloudy with bath salts. She'd placed candles around the room and lit them, and she had Grissom's books to hand. The muffled beep of her cellphone woke her from a half-daze. Frowning, Sara stood and wrapped herself in a towel, stepping out of the cooling water and walking out to the living room to find the device. It had stopped ringing by the time she got to it, but as she picked it up, the beep started again. Sara glanced at the clock as she flipped it open, concerned. It's one in the morning here, which makes it three in Virginia-- “Ed?” “Aunt Sara?” The trembling voice was definitely not Ed. Sara pulled the towel a little tighter, alarmed. “Kimmy? What's the matter, kiddo?” “I--I had a nightmare.” Sara let out her breath, relieved that no one was in the hospital. “Oh sweetie, I'm sorry. Where are you?” “In the kitchen. Daddy's asleep.” Kimmy's tone was low, and Sara knew she didn't want to wake her father. Ed would be sympathetic, but for some reason Sara had always been Kimmy's choice when the black terror woke her. Sara started walking towards the bedroom, feeling a little helpless. She couldn't offer a reassuring hug over the phone. Think outside the box. “I think I left one of my sweatshirts in the closet. Why don't you get that and put it on?” It would help with the psychic chill, at least. “Okay.” Sara could hear Kimmy moving, and the rustle as she pushed through the clothing in the closet. Sara took the opportunity to snag her own robe from the master bathroom; she'd forgotten it when preparing her bath. “Do you want to tell me about it?” Sara asked softly, knowing that Kimmy wouldn't have called in the middle of the night for anything less than a truly awful dream. “I dreamed about the crash,” Kimmy said, her voice still shaking a little, and Sara winced. Kimmy hadn't been in the car when the accident had happened, but she had seen it take place; Jenny had just dropped her daughter off at school. “I keep hearing it in my head, Aunt Sara.” “I know,” Sara said. “But it will fade. You know it does every time.” She shifted the phone from one shoulder to the other as she pulled on her robe. “Tell you what. You start heating some milk for cocoa there, and I'll do it here, and we can have some together even if we can't see each other.” “Okay,” Kimmy said again, her voice a little stronger. Sara went back out to the kitchen, finding supplies for cocoa and pulling them together as she listened to the clinks and rustles of Kimmy doing the same. “I watched it happen, but I couldn't make my feet move,” Kimmy continued softly. “I couldn't even make any noise.” Sara was intimately familiar with dream paralysis, and made an encouraging noise. “It just happened,” Kimmy said, her voice going wobbly again. “I know, sweetie,” Sara repeated, wishing intensely that she were able to wrap her arms around her niece. “But you couldn't have stopped it anyway.” Kimmy gulped. “I know.” Sara stirred the heating milk and kept talking, trying to soothe Kimmy's distress. “You know where the picture is, why don't you go get it? And then check on your milk.” She made her own cocoa and gradually talked Kimmy out of the horror, eventually sending her niece back upstairs and telling her a story over the phone as Kimmy snuggled under the covers. It wasn't quite the cure that they'd developed before, but it worked. “I miss you, Aunt Sara,” Kimmy said sleepily as Sara finished the story. Sara had to swallow. “I miss you too, kiddo,” she said quietly. “It's weird not having you around.” Kimmy giggled a little. “It's weird here too.” She was silent for a moment. “I'm sorry I called in the middle of the night.” Sara smiled, touched. “Hey, don't worry. If I were there, you would have woken me up, right?” “Yeah.” Kimmy yawned. “Maybe next time, I'll just make the cocoa by myself, though.” Sara bit her lip, carefully not contradicting Kimmy. “It's your decision. But if you need me, you call, no matter what time it is, okay?” “Okay.” Another yawn. “Goodnight, Aunt Sara.” “Goodnight, kiddo.” Sara shut off her phone, and went to blow out the candles, feeling an odd mix of wistfulness and pride. She's growing up.        Chapter 1     Chapter 2     Chapter 3     Chapter 4     Chapter 5     Chapter 6     Chapter 7     Chapter 8     Chapter 9     Chapter 10 Chapter 11     Chapter 12     Chapter 13     Chapter 14     Chapter 15     Chapter 16     Chapter 17    Chapter 18     Chapter 19     Chapter 20     Chapter 21     Chapter 22     Chapter 23     Chapter 24     Chapter 25     Chapter 26     Chapter 27     Chapter 28     Chapter 29     Chapter 30     Chapter 31     Chapter 33      Chapter 34     Chapter 35     Chapter 36     Chapter 37     Chapter 38 Chapter 39     Chapter 40 CSI Home Feedback