Disclaimer: I am not connected in any way to CSI
Summary: The story existed after Grave Danger before season six.
A/N: Thank you so much to my beta reader Rhee.
Eclosion
She did not smell the scent of flowers in the air, because they were not surrounded by beautiful garnet blossoming roses. She did not hear elegant waltz lingering around, because they were sitting on a wooden bench in a park after their lecture. The atmosphere here was not as fantastic as the description of fairy tales or romance novels she had read, but why did she still feel that subtle of chemical reaction between them. Sara Sidle who thirsted for truth was an intelligent and curious woman. Because she was an antisocial person, she observed people, the reaction of people and the interaction of people. At the first sight, she knew they were alike, both were observers. Abnormally, she wanted to verify that his conclusion of observation was the same as hers. An experiment, yes, because she was a scientist.
Comfortable, she did not know why she felt easy when she was beside him, and it was the first time that she did not want to analyze why. After she took a sip of her Latte, Sara picked up a safe topic and asked it. "So, what do you do when you have free time, Dr. Grissom?"
"Well, I read and study, Miss. Sidle" Grissom answered the question and took a sip of his black coffee.
"About bugs." A smug smile flashed over her lips. Not a question, although they had known each other for hours, she could realize some parts of him immediately. However, some parts of him were not enough to her. Sara was like a sponge, she absorbed the twinkle in his eyes, the sound of his voice, the scent of him, the way he spoke and held his coffee and every moment of him.
"About bugs. I read and study their life cycle, life start, ovum, larva, pupa, hatching or eclosion and life finish." Grissom chuckled when he saw her self-satisfied expression.
"Eclosion." She repeated that word once softly.
"Like butterflies, they need to peel four to six times, turn into a pupa and then hatch. Eclosion is the shortest and the most beautiful period in their life." Grissom explained it cheerfully.
"Butterflies, it reminds me of a Chinese tragedy that my Chinese room-mate told me about once." Sara looked into the air to recall the story and then a half smile appeared on her face.
"You're going to tell me the story, aren't you?" He lifted an eyebrow curiously and took another sip.
She grinned brightly to him. "Sure, just thought you weren't interested in anything but bugs."
"That's not true." Grissom said it firmly and return a warm smile.
Sara had read love stories, of course, but she was not interested in them, even the famous Romeo and Juliet. She did not know why she was impressed by that Chinese tragedy, maybe she saw the same personalities from that main character, maybe she believed there was something she would not acquire in real life, maybe the story was an exception, maybe.
"The story's name is Liang Zhu." Sara loved this season, felt the breeze gently touching their faces and she wanted to stroke his cheek instead of the breeze.
.
He enjoyed the view of the orange sunset that kissed her curly dark brown hair. "Liang Zhu?"
"Yeah, they were their last names, Shan-Bo Liang and Ying-Tai Zhu." She explained it.
He just listened to what she said silently.
"It happened in ancient China, women's social position was very low and they didn't have freedom, not only on behavior but on thought. Of course, women could not study at school. Ying-Tai was a rich man's only daughter. She broke the traditional rule because she disguised herself as a man and left her home to go to school to study and students have to live at school to study for two or three years. Ying-Tai met a guy named Shan-Bo on the way of going to the school and they became good friends. They lived and studied together and got acquainted with each other very well." Sara finished her last of gulp of coffee and continued the story.
Grissom was keeping his tour of study her.
"Three years passed and they finished their study. Before they went to home, Ying-Tai told Shan-Bo the truth that she was a woman and he promised to marry Ying-Tai. But it was too late when Shan-Bo went to Ying-Tai's home to ask agreement of her parents, because Ying-Tai's parents already betrothed her to a mayor's son. In ancient China, the marriage was decided by parents, even if Ying-Tai was unwilling to marry that person, she had no right to chose." Usually, when Sara chatted with other people, she always told them what she had heard, because she was not used to sharing her feelings to other people, except run her theory when she was at work. This man who with those unreadable deep blue eyes was incredible, in front of him, Sara would love to tell him everything.
"A tragedy." He said it in an ordinary tone.
"Yes, And Ying-Tai's parents forbade her to meet Shan-Bo and locked her at home. Shan-Bo missed her so much that he died of a broken heart. When Ying-Tai's heard that startling news, she swore to follow him to die to herself. And she told her parents that she accepted the marriage, but she wanted to stop over at Shan-Bo's tomb and mourned for him. The day of her marriage, when her bride sedan chair stopped in front of the tomb, the wind blew suddenly, the sky became cloudy and Shan-Bo's grave burst out of the hole, at once Ying-Tai jumped into the hole without hesitation. Latterly the wind stopped, the cloudy disappeared and Shan-Bo's grave restored. Subsequently, two butterflies appeared behind the grave and flew to the sky. The people present all said those two butterflies were become by Shan-Bo and Ying-Tai and they were finally happy together. The story is end." She was not a people person, but she was a sensitive woman. Sara could feel what he felt.
"Looking on from the scientific angle, becoming butterfly is impossible, but I like the story and it was a beautiful story that I've never heard before." He could not help but looked into her crystal-clear brown eyes when he answered the question.
"According to my room-mate, the moment of them becoming butterflies is called eclosion. Actually, eclosion is description of the process of a human becaming a celestial in ancient China. Later on this word develops into the new beginning and the new hope." Unconsciously, she did not know she was staring at his lips. Carnation, pink or rosiness, which color is most suitable to describe his lip?
"Well, you always learn something new everyday. And it sounds you like that word pretty much." No lipstick. It was his turn. Grissom's sight was transferred to her lips from her eyes.
"Yeah, I love that word, it's positive and I hope I can use that word one day in the future." She discovered the distance between them was becoming shorter and shorter, she did not want to know who was the first person to move, she did not care how many people in this park would see them, and it was the first time she did not want anything but this magnificent moment.
After her last sentence, they did not say a word.
Silence, was the only sound she could hear now. He did not slip his arms to around her waist, and she did not lift her hands to rest on his shoulders. They only leaned forward to each other slowly, very slowly. Felt the heat on their skin was transmitted to each other by the air. Felt the blood in their vessels was flowed rapid by their unspoken willing. Their lips were moving closer to each other inch by inch and almost met, almost.
"Hey, Sara, is that you? How have you been doing?" Destroyer, which was the first word that came to Sara's mind, okay, bastard was the first one.
＊＊＊
Greg walked into the break room and sat on a chair next to Sara. "Sara! Are you insane or did Grissom punish you? You're reading something about insect!"
"No, Greg, I'm not insane nor did I piss off Grissom yet. I was searching a bug which was related to my case. What can I do for you?" Sara looked up from her entomology textbook and faked a small smile.
"Shift is over. Nick and I are going to have breakfast; you want to come, teacher's pet?" Greg teased with a sly smile.
Teacher's pet. Sara would not please a person on purpose. Those ridiculous behaviors of sacrifice for love in newspaper columns were an entertainment to her. When she first felt it, she was shocked by herself, she had two relationships with men before, but Grissom was the first person who let her willingly to ingratiate him with everything and she wanted to capture his attention, occupy his thought and imprison his body. Therefore, she read Shakespeare's plays, saved her cases perfectly and typed everything he said. The most absurd situation was that they were not even in a relationship. Her PEAP counselor told her that she looked for validation in inappropriate places. She already had had an answer for it. She loved him.
"Well, I'm waiting for a report from Hodges, maybe next time, Greg." She shot him a sideward glance and focused on her textbook again.
"Okay, keep looking for your lovely bugs, see you next shift." Before Sara had an opportunity to say something Greg disappeared.
After Adam's case and what happened to Nick, Sara examined and organized herself, Grissom, she and Grissom and her life. Police scanner and forensic journals, they were not hers responsibility, she did not have to report to them for duty when she got home or on her day off. Although she loved her job, it did not mean that she should work overtime everyday. Her past, she had told Grissom a part of her secret, there were still some stories as heavy boxes accumulated in deep in her mind, she needed to deal with them and moved them out of her present. Grissom, she loved him, no doubt, but she was the major person in her life, not him. Romance was just a part of life, the love was a foundation and origin of life. She needed to learn to love herself more, if she did not love herself who else would love her? She needed a new way to live, real living, not as a zombie anymore. A new start was never too late.
Grissom stood next to her, placed his hands on the table and faced her. "You're here."
"Yeah, you need me?" She smiled and caught her absent mind back.
"Yes, I need you" his beautiful blue eyes locked with her attractive brown ones.
"Okay" A brilliant gap-tooth grin on her face.
"Pick up your purse and meet me at my car in ten minutes, I have something I want to show you." That was his smile, she only reserved it to him, it always made his heart flip.
His townhouse, she had come here once five years ago.
The decorations did not change too much; he re-painted some white walls to light blue, white and blue, as simple as its owner, very Grissom style. Sara did not use her professional crime vision to scan his townhouse, because it was not crime scene, it was his house. She could tell he only added some butterfly specimens, more books and probably few classical music CDs, nothing more.
She followed Grissom into his kitchen and sat on one of stool. "So, what is the thing you wanted to show me?"
"It needs some more time; we can enjoy our breakfast first and wait for it, shall we?" Grissom took eggs and milk from the fridge.
"Sure, what are you going to cook?" She asked half curious, half anxious. Did he remember that she was a vegetarian after sending her the plant with a card of stupid sentiment?
"Vegetarian omelet." He continued carefully mixing ingredients in a big stainless bowl.
She admired him silently, concentrating on what he was doing, and he also had an orderliness system no matter what he was doing, perhaps except paperwork and this. "Sounds great, need any help?"
"Yeah, just pour two classes of apple juice, relax and wait." He pointed at kitchen counter which he put the juice glasses at and winked to her.
It was strange, when Grissom was near her, the rules she made for herself were disintegrating just as a glass bottle fell on the floor and broke in pieces, were gone. When she was around him, the desire to be close to him was spreading as a cup of water overturned and water splashed everywhere, could not take it back.
"I didn't know you're such a good cook." A satisfied expression appeared on Sara's face.
He led her to the hallway and entered his bug room. "I've never told anyone."
"Your bugs have a room?" She noticed a transparent bug box which had some plants and a yellow object which looked like a curly leaf hanged on the plants in it on a small square table which was in the middle of the room and a video camera was set behind the table.
"Of course, I don't want to sleep with them." Grissom walked toward the camera, checked to see if it was still recording and took three pictures.
"Is it a pupa?" Sara asked in an uncertain tone.
"Yes, It is. A friend of mine is work at a butterfly pavilion in Nevada. He told me their pavilion got some new butterflies named Troides Helena, I asked him to give me one and I'll observe and record it and give him my observation report." He took the observation note of the butterfly from the desk which was on the left side of the room and wrote down his observation.
Sara stepped near the square table, confirmed that she did not interfere with the camera while photographing and took a close look at the pupa "Why do you suddenly want to observe life cycle of a butterfly?"
"Do you remember you told me a Chinese tragedy when we first met?" He put the note on the desk and walked beside her.
She looked at him surprised "Yeah, of course I remember. Liang Zhu."
"Good, because I want you to see how beautiful the process of eclosion is." He answered it simply and they gazed at each other.
He remembered that Chinese tragedy, she had told him it eight years ago. Afterward they had not mentioned the story or their unfinished business again.
"But Grissom, how do you know it'll hatch today?" She did not break the contact of their eyes.
He thought two seconds. "Well, I don't know. This butterfly belongs to the Papilionidae family and it usually has been a pupa for ninety days. Today is its ninety-one, it should hatch today."
"What if it doesn't hatch today?" She did mean to be picky; she just wanted to know what he was thinking.
He considered her question then smiled lightly. "If it doesn't, then you have to come to my home with me after shift till you see it."
"Um, go home with your boss, that's not something you can do everyday, it's a good idea, I won't complain." Sara joked and a huge smile flickered across her lips.
Sara glanced at the bug box occasionally then focused on box again then cried "Grissom! It's moving!"
They witnessed the every moment of the unbelievable process of the butterfly. The Troides Helena butterfly came out hardly from the pupa, the legs and head were that the first parts appearing and it used its whole body to get rid of the broken pupa. Looking at the profound circle of the life, a lot of ineffable emotions were filled of their hearts. They watched the butterfly still leaning against the plants and its wings were wrinkled and droopy. In an instant, the blood was flowed into wings by pressure of gravity and wings were flattened. This extraordinary process was beyond the word.
Grissom stared at the butterfly. "It's amazing, isn't it?"
"Yes, I've never thought the process could touch my heart deeply." The tears sparkled in Sara's eyes.
"The butterfly has to use two to three hours to dry its wings before it flies." He turned to face her.
She nodded.
Grissom took her hands in his with a serious expression "Sara, I've been studying bugs my whole life, I know what eclosion means to a butterfly, but I've never realized what eclosion could mean to a person. And you were the person who teaches me that. Sara, I want to have a new beginning with you and I want a new hope for you and me. Could we make today become the wonderful word day?"
This time, Grissom pulled her into his embrace, slid his arms around her waist and Sara wrapped her arms around his neck. Suddenly, she understood that she did not need pretty roses or classical waltz to create a mirage surrounding them, the love, already gave them what they needed. She shortened the space between them, felt their smooth-going breath exchanged on each other's face. He pressed his lips on hers, felt time stop and what heaven was. Their first kiss was tender, sweet, perfect and it was a terrific beginning.
She broke their connection, caught her breath and gave him his smile. "Eclosion is definitely a miraculous word, Gil."
The End
A/N: This is my first story, I know it wasn't good as other stories on this site, but please let me know what you think about it and thanks for reading the story.