Fandom:
CSI
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: GSR
Summary: What is most precious? A sequel to
Disclaimer: Most 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; all others are my property, 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: Through the end of Season 4, but does not take Season 5 into
account.
Note: Final chapter, and definitely a US rating (Unabashedly
Sentimental). You have been warned!
*********
Chapter 10
She still didn’t look dangerous, Grissom thought, watching
through the glass as the slight woman in chains and a jumpsuit sat down
at the interrogation room table. She looked a little fey, perhaps, but
not so much that she would stand out in a crowd.
Brass sat down opposite Laurie Carroll, placing his folded hands on the
table, and Grissom could see that he was going to be avuncular,
choosing to treat Carroll as insane rather than straight-out evil. The
results of her psych evaluation were still pending, but it was a sucker
bet that her lawyer would advise her to plead not guilty by reason of
mental disease.
“So, Ms. Carroll, are you going to tell me why?”
Brass asked calmly.
Carroll shifted, eyeing him. Grissom heard the door open and shut
behind him, but didn’t turn, instead holding out one hand;
Sara’s hand slid into it, and he drew her to his side. There
was no one here to observe them, and they both needed the reassurance.
“I told her. She took my treasures.”
Carroll’s gaze flicked to the window, and Grissom tightened
his grip on Sara’s fingers, realizing that the small woman
had guessed that they were there.
“The CSIs work as a team,” Brass pointed out
mildly. “Why CSI Sidle in particular?”
“The paper said so,” Carroll replied, and Sara
hissed slightly. “She was the one who figured it out.
She’s the only one who ever figured it out.”
Brass made an affirming noise, and Carroll’s eyes went back
to him. “I saw them, you know. While they were plundering my
house.”
The two CSIs exchanged glances, remembering the feeling of being
watched. Brass frowned. “How did you do that?”
Carroll snorted, looking contemptuous. “Did you think I
wouldn’t watch? I was on the hill behind my home. You made me
leave, but I wasn’t going to just run away.”
Grissom’s beeper went off, and as he reached down for it, so
did Sara’s. They looked at the displays and then at each
other. “Greg,” they said simultaneously.
Grissom sighed. “Do you want to stay? I don’t think
he needs both of us.”
Sara hesitated, then shook her head. “I think I’ve
heard what I need to.”
Grissom nodded, and leaned over to shut off the sound, then let
Sara’s hand go. “You know,” he said,
trying to keep his voice light, “I wonder what
she’d have done if we hadn’t
been together.”
Sara snorted. “Probably just killed me straight
out.” She ignored Grissom’s faintly horrified look.
“Hey, I keep forgetting to ask you. What did Carvallo say
yesterday?”
Grissom blew out his breath. “Well, actually, it went better
than I expected. He said that as long as we remain professional in the
workplace, he has no objections, since I’m not directly
responsible for your potential promotions.”
He shrugged, not wanting either to worry Sara or to turn her
considerable wrath in the director’s direction. The truth
was, Carvallo had taken one look at Grissom’s expression, and
had obviously changed his mind, choosing to be concilatory rather than
piss off one of his most valuable employees. His attitude had both
amused and irritated Grissom, but the quiet advice to “Marry
the girl, Grissom,” had wiped away the humor.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to. But having
someone like the lab director voice the idea seemed to smirch it
somehow. And he wasn’t about to mention it to Sara just yet.
She gave him a long look, and he figured she suspected there was more
to the story than what he was telling her, but for once she let it go.
He considered that a sign that he was rebuilding her trust.
The annual LVPD softball game wasn't for months yet, but Grissom had
insisted that he needed to work on his throwing arm, so Sara had dug up
their gloves and brought them along. She had to admit that the stretch
of throwing and the dull smack of the ball hitting her glove was a
little addictive. They stood in the small cul-de-sac outside the house
and tossed the ball back and forth in an easy rhythm, standing just far
apart that they had to shout a little.
“I like this place,” Grissom said loudly, sending
the ball in a perfect high arc that dropped precisely into
Sara’s glove. She grinned.
“It is nice, isn’t it? I always loved coming here
as a kid.” Her aunt’s place, high in the Oakland
hills, was to Sara almost the epitome of what a retreat should be. The
house and its garden tumbled gently down a slope, presenting a closed
face to the world but cherishing the tangled plant life within its high
fences as a secret. A basket chair swung on the patio and a small
swimming pool and jacuzzi sat at the bottom of the garden, gemlike;
dwarf fruit trees and a musical little streamlet and pond gave the
enclosed space the feel of something from a fairy tale.
She threw the ball back a bit wide, making Grissom reach for it and
absently admiring the lines of his body as he moved.
“It’s one of those places where nothing really
changes.”
Grissom nodded, opting for a grounder this time. “So your
aunt leases it out every year?”
“Not exactly.” Sara let the big sphere leave her
grip, feeling the pull in muscles she didn’t usually use and
savoring the thought of the jacuzzi for later. “She likes
traveling, so four months out of the year, the place is open to anybody
in the family who signs up for it. That way it stays occupied and cared
for.” A gardener came in once a week, but other than that
maintenance was up to the people who stayed there. “I
haven’t been here since I left California, so I kind of got
first dibs.”
They fell silent for a while, letting their expressions speak for them
as they tossed and caught, trading small jokes and compliments with
smiles and gestures. Despite the success of their relationship so far,
Sara hadn’t been sure how taking a vacation together would
work. Leisure time was not something they’d had a lot of. So
far, so good, though.
She’d been right, Grissom had worn himself out preparing for
two weeks off, but two days of sleeping late had restored his energy,
and they’d simply taken their time, lazing around the kitchen
or patio or driving out to explore the wineries and wilderness.
It was wonderful.
Eventually they wound down, edging closer as their arms got tired, and
finally Grissom made one last toss and rushed Sara as she caught the
ball, grabbing her in his arms and lifting her off her feet. She
squealed, laughing. “Don’t you dare drop
me!”
“Not a chance.” Grissom spun her around once,
laughing himself, and kissed her soundly before setting her back on her
feet. “What time is it?”
Sara slipped off her glove and looked at her watch.
“It’s only eleven.”
“Let’s go down to the city. I want seafood for
dinner.”
She looked up at him, a little surprised; they’d been
sticking mostly to quieter areas in their sojourns, enjoying the change
from the bustle of Vegas. “You don’t want to go to
Fred and Harry’s?” They’d eaten at the
local restaurant twice already.
“San Francisco,” Grissom insisted, removing his own
glove. His hair was ruffled and curlier than usual, and Sara thought he
looked adorable. “We have to go back in three days and we
still haven’t been to the city.”
Sara shrugged, not averse to spending time in her home town.
“Okay. I want to change clothes first.” Her T-shirt
and jeans were rather scruffy.
Grissom opened the front door for her. “Wear something
nice,” he told her as she passed him, and she turned,
curious. He grinned again. “Let’s make a night of
it.”
They took BART into the city. “Baghdad by the Bay,”
Grissom murmured as the train made its way down towards the water, and
Sara glanced over at him.
“I didn’t know you knew that one. Did my dad tell
you?”
Grissom shook his head, remembering Christmas Day. He’d met
Sara’s parents before, briefly, but it had been years since
he’d seen them. This time, he and Sara had arrived at Tamales
Bay to find her parents’ bed-and-breakfast overflowing with
friends and family; her brother Ed, for instance, had brought a couple
of pals with him, a quiet dark man obviously in love with a vivacious
redhead who had embraced Sara with the glee of old friends reunited.
For a moment Grissom had felt left out, isolated from the swirl of
chattering people, but then Sara had dragged him into the heart of it,
and over the course of the day he’d found that while he
himself could be counted as fairly peculiar, he was downright normal
compared to many of the guests. But they were open and friendly, for
the most part, and if he barely got to talk to Sara’s parents
it didn’t seem to matter. The food was plentiful and everyone
was cheerful.
At one point, though, it had all gotten to be a bit much, and
he’d withdrawn a little--retreating from the noise and cheer,
ducking out a side door and finding a small path that led towards the
ocean.
The day was sunny but
fairly chilly, and goosebumps were springing up on his arms, but he
didn’t feel like going back for his jacket. The slow hiss of
the waves on the beach was soothing, but despite the small sense of
relief at getting out of the bustle, Grissom felt melancholy creeping
up on him. The people were great, if odd, and he felt easier in that
group of strangers than he had in many a more familiar party, but none
of them were his except Sara. Loss hit him hard in the pit of the
stomach. This was nothing like the quiet holidays he had spent with his
mother and her family, the church services and the warm, formal
dinners, and suddenly he felt very alone.
Then footsteps crunched in the sand behind him, and something warm
covered his shoulders. He looked down to see his jacket, and
Sara’s arms around his waist. “Do you really want
to be by yourself?” she murmured next to his ear.
And that was when he realized it, for the first time, for the
thousandth. He wasn’t
alone.
He wrapped his hands around her wrists, leaning back a little,
absorbing the bliss of her. “Nope.”
“That shirt looks good on you,” Sara commented, and
Grissom pulled out of his reverie and glanced down. He’d
forgotten what he was wearing almost as soon as he’d put on
the green shirt and dark sports coat.
“Thanks.” He tugged at his cuffs. “You
look stunning, yourself.”
She laughed, but he could see her cheeks tinting faintly. “So
you said.”
Grissom felt his mouth twitch up. In fact, he’d merely
wolf-whistled when she’d walked out of the bathroom in the
long silky skirt and jacket, their rosy-red color a perfect foil to her
skin and the black sleeveless blouse and puzzle necklace fitting
accents. He loved it when she pulled up her hair and let the little
curls dangle, and he loved making her blush even more. The whistle had
done it nicely.
It was a weekend, so the rapid transit would run until the wee hours;
they left the station holding hands, a guilty pleasure transmuted to
innocence by leaving Las Vegas. Grissom had been here before, but this
was Sara’s city, and it was only early afternoon. She led him
through the Conservatory of Flowers, and then he insisted on a closer
look at the Golden Gate, saying that it had been too foggy the last
time he’d been in town. They thought about the Exploratorium,
but decided it required a day of its own, so Grissom took Sara to a
tiny museum she’d never encountered--one that held nothing
but coin-operated novelties. She insisted on trying nearly all of them.
As the sun set, they found themselves on Fisherman’s
Wharf--cliché, as Sara said, but still lots of fun. She
dragged Grissom into the Turbo Ride, on the grounds that it was the
closest thing around to a roller coaster, and then nearly had to drag
him back out again.
Finally they ended up leaning over the railing at the West Marina,
looking at the glistening humps of the sea lions as they slept.
Grissom’s feet hurt, but he couldn’t remember
having so much fun since the last time he’d visited Six
Flags. Scratch that. Today was
much more fun.
“Whatcha thinking?” Sara asked idly, watching one
enormous pinniped roll ponderously over. Grissom turned around to lean
back against the rail and admire her profile, sharp-edged in the light
from the streetlamp.
“How lucky I am,” he said lightly.
“Hungry?”
Dinner was seafood for both of them, reminding Sara of their months-ago
supper in Marina del Rey, where she had wished for something very much
like what she had now. Her sudden grin caught Grissom’s
attention, but instead of querying her, he merely raised his brows and
smiled back. When he looked back down at his plate, Sara took her time
watching him, savoring every second.
The last couple of weeks had been as much a time out of time as their
previous visit to California, she knew, even though they were very
different emotionally. The last few years had seen she and Grissom
build a friendship, destroy it, painfully recreate it, and finally dare
to risk more. In the months they had been together, they had dealt with
arguments, exhaustion, the tensions of keeping secrets, and the terror
of Laurie Carroll’s madness. They still had to face the
ramifications of their relationship at work when they returned.
And I so
don’t care right now.
Nothing was perfect, Sara knew that. Grissom wasn’t always
easy to live with; he could still be abstracted and unintentionally
distant, and sometimes he just forgot to tell her things. Sara knew
herself to be difficult at times as well, and was still amazed at times
how hard Grissom was to annoy.
But the last two weeks had been as close to perfect as she hoped to
get. Nothing lasts forever,
but it does give us something to shoot for in the future.
And shivered a little with delight. Geez,
we have a future.
They lingered over dessert this time, sharing the chocolate mousse and
the fruit tarte, laughing when Sara got a smear of mousse on her upper
lip, and Grissom taking the opportunity to kiss it away. Finally they
made their way back to the train, finding themselves on an empty car
but snuggling into one seat together nonetheless. Sara leaned back
against Grissom’s arm and wondered happily at the strangeness
of life. This time last year I
wouldn’t have thought this was possible.
Grissom shifted next to her, and she rolled her head around to look at
him. “Something the matter?”
He made a soft, resigned sound. “I’m
nervous,” he said after a moment, eyes crinkled with
amusement mingled with something she couldn’t name.
“Nervous?
How come?” Sara straightened, puzzled. Grissom shook his
head.
“When you think about the future, Sara, what do you
want?”
She frowned a little, thinking. “I don’t know.
Maybe to go back to school for my doctorate someday.”
“But you’re happy now?”
She looked up at him, at the face she loved because it was his, at the
eyes watching her with loving intensity, and smiled. His beard was
silky under her fingertips. “I used to wish for a lot of
things, Gil. I don’t, anymore.”
He turned his head to kiss her fingers. “How long have we
known each other?”
“Almost ten years.” Sara cocked her head playfully.
“Are you trying to tell me something?”
“I’m trying to ask you something.”
Grissom blew out his breath, and Sara realized he really was nervous.
She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his lips, warm and brief.
“I have no secrets,” she teased. “Go for
it.”
“Marry me?”
She’d never been the sentimental type, but in that moment all
of reality seemed to pulse around her with shock, and then with joy.
Their eyes locked, and this time he didn’t look away,
didn’t look away... “Okay.”
He blinked, then. “Really?”
“Hell yeah.”
He said something else, but she couldn’t make it out, since
it was said against her mouth. He hadn’t held her so tightly
since the last time she’d had a nightmare, and it was
perfect; she clutched him back, reflecting dimly that nervousness
wasn’t necessary. He tasted of coffee and chocolate and joy,
and the train entered a station and left it before they managed to find
words again.
“Did you really think I’d say no?” she
mumbled against his cheek, and felt the vibration as he laughed.
“No...I don’t know. It wasn’t rational,
Sara.” He leaned back a little to look at her. “We
haven’t been dating that long and--“
She cut him off with another kiss. He never quite seemed to get that
being with him was her heart’s desire. “I want
this, trust me,” she said at last. breathless.
“We’ve known each other for years, Gil. We know
each other. It makes sense.”
He nodded, relaxing. “Yes. Yes, it does.” Kissing
her one last time, he pulled out of her arms and fumbled in his coat
pocket. “If you don’t like this, we can find
another, of course.”
Sara blinked, astonished again, as he opened the worn little box and
tilted it to show her the contents. The ring was delicate, and done in
the style of an era long past; two small garnets framed a slightly
larger diamond, and the gold band was intricately engraved with a leafy
pattern. “It was my grandmother’s,”
Grissom added.
“It’s gorgeous,” Sara said, her voice
catching a little. She’d always found the idea of engagement
rings a little silly, but this one touched her. Coming from Grissom, it
meant so much more than something new.
Grissom picked up her hand and slid the ring onto her finger. Oddly
enough, it fit perfectly.
Brass says that Carroll had a hideout on the hill behind her house,
kind of like a duck blind,” Grissom explained, sitting at the
breakfast bar. Sara made an encouraging noise, though her bottom lip
was caught between her teeth as she concentrated on flipping the
pancakes. “She was up there the whole time, watching us
through binoculars.”
“Definitely paranoid,” Sara offered, frowning at
the griddle.
“In any case, not our problem for a while,” he
said, standing to begin setting the table but keeping an eye on
Sara’s efforts. She was determined to learn to cook--because,
she said, becoming a Grissom would entitle her to the family chocolate
torte recipe. Grissom, laughing, had asked her if she only loved him
for his pastry, and her wordless response had distracted them for quite
some time.
Now, however, it was an uphill battle. Grissom had always regarded
cooking as a mix of art and science, but was amazed at how easily Sara
could ruin something. It wasn’t that she didn’t pay
attention; things simply seemed to go wrong around her with diabolical
frequency. Nevertheless, progress was being made, and so far that
morning she had only scorched two pancakes.
Grissom had set out all the silverware and poured the juice by the time
Sara turned off the stove. He watched her as she piled the last few
cakes onto the plate, her ring catching the light and twinkling at him,
and sighed a little. They’d had a mild argument on the way
home--nothing serious, but it had culminated with Sara ordering him in
an irritated voice to remember to just tell
her things. She didn’t seem annoyed any longer, but doubt
still nibbled at him.
Sara came around the breakfast bar to put the plate on the table,
looking extremely pleased with herself, and they sat down together, but
then she frowned and sprang up again. “Forgot the
syrup,” she explained, going back to the kitchen. Grissom
turned in his seat, putting one elbow over the back of it.
“Sara...”
“Mmm?” she replied, reaching into the refrigerator.
“Am I too...difficult?” Grissom bit the inside of
his cheek, afraid of what his question might spark, but unable to avoid
asking it.
Sara straightened with the syrup bottle, looking perplexed, and shut
the fridge door. “What?”
He shrugged a little, trying not to show how uncertain he felt. Sara
regarded him a long moment, one of her narrow-eyed, calculating looks.
Then, as she walked back over, her brilliant smile spread slowly over
her face. “You’re like treasure, Gil.”
She ruffled his hair with one hand, eyes warm. “It takes some
digging to get to you, but you are so worth it.”
Exhaling, relieved, he leaned his head against her stomach, and she set
down the bottle so she could stroke his hair with both hands. He put
his arms around her hips, and they were silent for a moment, holding
the balance of togetherness.
Finally Grissom turned his head, kissing the skin of Sara’s
abdomen where her shirt had ridden up and making her squeak as his
beard tickled her. “The pancakes are getting cold,”
he pointed out, releasing her.
She wrinkled her nose at him, taking her seat.
“That’s what the microwave’s
for.”
They were through with the meal and were discussing the weekend when
Sara sat up straight. “Wait a minute. You’ve got
that budget meeting on Thursday, right?”
Grissom rolled his eyes. “Don’t remind
me.”
“Phone, please.” Sara held out a hand, and Grissom
snagged the receiver for her. She punched the speed dial and put the
phone between her shoulder and ear, freeing her hands to begin stacking
the plates. Grissom started collecting silverware, listening curiously.
He didn’t hear anyone answer, but Sara spoke after a moment.
“Hey, Jim, it’s Sara. --Yeah, I’m
fine.” She met Grissom’s eyes, smiling at him.
“Are you free Thursday afternoon?”
Content, he smiled back.
End.
Chapter 10
|
|
