Disclaimer: I don't own them, I didn't create them, and I don't profit from them; however, I would definitely give Jorja Fox a new contract with a big raise if I did.
Author's Note: This is in response to a challenge and is also a rather late post-ep for the finale.
"It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;-- it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others." Jane Austen's words made Sara smile as she spoke them out loud; she'd never expected that a simple get well gift in the form of Sense and Sensibility would bring such clarity to the truth she was coming to grips with.
She had spent nearly seven years longing after Grissom; yet even after she'd found herself in that moment of finally when he seemed to return that longing for her, it didn't seem like it was what she'd really been longing for at all. Certainly she'd found an affinity with him that she'd seldom experienced; perhaps never really experienced with anyone else up to that point, but even after all that time, she didn't feel like she really knew him. He knew far more about her than she'd been comfortable sharing with any of her coworkers--her friends--that sort of family they'd become, but still what did she really know about him? He kept his heart so carefully guarded close to his chest and the little details of his life were shared so few and far between even in those quiet moments in the oasis they'd carved out with each other away from the prying eyes and wagging tongues of the crime lab. Well eyes that would most certainly pry and tongues that would give a dogs tail a run for its money in the wagging department if they'd known about it all before she'd been kidnapped. Somehow those hours spent lying alone trapped underneath that car out in the desert; where Natalie had wanted her to die she'd come to grips with the deepest truth of her heart; she'd faced her greatest fear and somehow she'd come out on the other side, definitely worse for the wear, but somehow retooled in a way that she hadn't expected.
She recalled the first words that had filtered through her semi-conscious state as she finally realized that she'd been found and was in the hospital. "It wasn't your day, Sara, it wasn't your day." Those words had continued to replay over and over in her mind and they offered her a hope from a place she'd never thought to look. In the seven days since she'd been found, there had been one constant and it had been those words, that face, that smile.
And oddly they weren't Grissom's words, his face or even his smile; he was working the case, making sure that Natalie and her accomplice paid their due for what they'd done not only to Sara but to the other victims as well. He had explained to her that he wanted to make sure that justice was done so that neither of them would ever stand outside the walls of a prison for the rest of their natural life; and since she needed her rest he shouldn't be there to distract her. That was all well and good and she held a certain amount of admiration for his dedication to the case, but this of all times, she had wished that he showed even a small measure of his devotion to her. As much as she thought he was what she wanted all this time; she had come to the painful realization that she had been wrong.
As soft knock sounded at the door of her hospital room and she shifted her weight in the bed as she set Sense and Sensibility down in her lap and glanced towards the door, "Come in." As much as she was enjoying one of Jane Austen's more notable works, the idea of company was much more inviting; she'd learned in the first few days she'd been there that the nurses didn't really knock so much as announce themselves so she knew it must be someone else.
"Hey, Sar," The warmth in Nick's voice spread out like the summer sun coming over the horizon first thing in the morning. He tried to hide the worry he felt as he strode confidently over towards the chair that was adjacent to her bed and he enveloped her hand with his, giving it a squeeze as he seemed to be taking some sort of inventory that she really was ok and that they'd actually found her in time before he sank down onto the edge of the bed right next to her instead of taking up residence in the chair.
"Hey, yourself," She smiled at him feeling a slight flutter in the pit of her stomach at the touch of his fingers curling around hers as he sat down. She had always counted Nick Stokes as a good friend, but over the last seven days he'd shown her a devotion that she'd never seen anyone give her. She knew that they shared a kinship that no one else could really understand; her abduction had bonded them in a way that she couldn't even begin to explain, but she didn't really have to because it was clear that Nick understood.
He noticed that she'd been reading the book he'd brought her; somewhere over the course of the last several months he'd noticed that she'd been reading some of the classics in those rare moments that they had down time in the break room; when great literature had replaced forensic journals he couldn't really pinpoint, but he did know that Sense and Sensibility was one of his mother's favorite books and so he'd taken the chance that Sara hadn't read it and brought her a copy on his second visit to the hospital. He quirked a brow even as his lips curled into a bit of a smirk, "A little light reading?"
"Something like that," Sara let out a soft chuckle and locked her eyes with his for a long moment; there was so much she wanted to ask him about his abduction, so much she wanted to say about her own experience but somehow she knew what it had been like for him; she'd felt that very same fear that she wouldn't be found in time, that she would be lost to everyone, save the memories of the few people that she had counted as friends.
Nick's expression turned a bit more serious and he had difficulty hiding the emotion in his voice as he gave her hand another squeeze, "It does get a bit easier with time you know." He hadn't been sure of that at all when he'd finally been found; the nightmares he'd been plagued with for months afterwards brought back every dark moment in that coffin and every dark moment in his past that he'd hoped he could somehow forget. Every now and then they'd come back, but as time passed it was less and less frequent.
"Thank you for believing that you'd find me," She didn't even have to ask him if he'd given up hope; somehow it seemed that for the man who'd beaten the odds himself giving up on hope would never be an option; he'd been right about Cassie McBride and he had been right about her.
Despite his attempt to hold himself together, he felt his chin begin to quiver a little bit and he blinked back tears; the waver in his voice gave him away, "I was so scared, Sara, but I couldn't stop believing that we'd find you in time...I couldn't entertain the option that you might not be here." There was far more he wanted to tell her; and he'd get there soon enough, but for now he just wanted to appreciate the fact that she was going to be ok.
"I was scared too," Her voice was a whisper and she reached out for him and pulled him into a hug, and as his arms slipped around her and pulled her in close in response, she felt like she had come home. In seven short days, she'd found an emotional intimacy with Nick that hadn't realized had been growing soft and steadily since the day she'd met him; maybe it was the unbidden nature of it that had caused it to blossom.
It was ironic really; Sara had spent so much time and effort these last seven years trying to capture Gil Grissom's heart and when she'd finally won it, she realized that she still didn't know who the man truly was on the inside; she wasn't sure that she ever would. Yet here was Nick, wearing his heart on his sleeve and making no apologies for how much he valued her. Jane Austen's words filtered through her mind once again, "It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;-- it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others."
The End