Defying Gravity
Author: wobbear
Rating: Teen
Disclaimer: Grissom doesn't belong to me, and more's the pity.
Author's note/spoiler info: I noticed that Grissom/WP sounded stuffed-up when he returned from his sabbatical break and somehow that observation led to this. Does it qualify as angst? Doubtful. But it's as angsty as I'm ever likely to write. Maybe it's fluffy angst, or angsty fluff? Whatever - the story starts before Law of Gravity.
My thanks to the wonderful PhDelicious for the beta.
Summary: Returning from sabbatical, Grissom is not well. GSR
He was going home. Saying goodbye to the bright and eager students who'd been fascinated to learn from a renowned entomologist and veteran CSI, returning to the daily grind of crime and law enforcement bureaucracy.
He was going home. Leaving behind a month of day-walking after decades of graveyard shifts, going back to the nightly challenge of whatever Sin City's criminals could throw at him.
He was going home. Departing the North East's damp white chill, heading for the mild Las Vegas winter.
He was going home. Away from that lonely bed in the eerily quiet efficiency apartment. Home to Sara.
Sara, Sara, Sara. He missed her so. Her captivating countenance, her compassionate heart, her lithe body, her throaty laugh, her fascinating mind, her long luscious legs, her gorgeous smile, her weird sense of humor.
He couldn't wait to see her.
oooooooo
He felt like crap.
He'd had the first inkling four evenings ago - a raspy, raw throat that no amount of medicinal whisky could lubricate. The next day his head started to fill up, and his nose took to dripping at the most inconvenient moments. And then came the all-over body ache, the lack of energy and the desire to stay curled up in bed instead of going out to face the world. But his time at Williams was nearly over; opting out wasn't an option.
It was just a cold.
He knew that. He hadn't sought pointless antibiotics, just treated the symptoms as he saw fit. Like insensitive visitors, those symptoms were oblivious to his discomfort, one not having the grace to depart when another turned up.
He hated taking medication. But he knew that his mother's old remedy - hot lemon and honey drinks - while comforting, had done far less good than the occasional ibuprofen that he'd swallowed down with the steaming citrusy mixture.
Yesterday, when his nose had stopped running and his sinuses began pounding with overload, he'd finally given in and taken a decongestant. Nothing happened. Then he swallowed some more. No change. He'd maxed out on the permitted dose two days' running, to no discernable effect. Stupid drug didn't seem to be working. Either that, or this was the worst cold he'd had in a long time.
He huddled in his window seat, feeling miserable. The rapid acceleration of take-off and the steep climb out of Logan had increased the pressure in his head to painful proportions. He was trying not to think about the stop his flight would soon make in Chicago; the descent and landing followed by the subsequent take-off were not likely to improve his situation. Inside he was silently fuming about how the airline insisted it was a 'direct' flight; it just wasn't 'non-stop'. Stupid aviation semantics, he muttered mulishly to himself.
Grissom feebly pummeled the measly pillow. Sighing, he positioned it between his aching head and the dingy plastic internal wall of the plane. He raised a hand to massage his swollen sinuses, hoping that the heat and gentle kneading of his fingers would ease the congestion that throbbed along his cheek bones. His hand was clammy. Ugh.
Perhaps this was a new, ultra-virulent viral strain. He toyed vaguely with that idea for a while before discarding it.
He rarely caught colds in Las Vegas – somehow the desert climate wasn't rhinovirus-friendly. He knew what the problem was, really. He had been run-down when he went on sabbatical, his immune system at a low ebb. Add into the mix a disparate bunch of students, having to change his sleep schedule, numerous communal meals in college cafeterias and he was a prime candidate to get got. Got he had been, and good – or was it bad? Grissom mentally shrugged; his brain was too weary to decide.
Entomologist crushed by bug? Yeah, he was really losing it now.
Damn.
With impeccable timing, just as he was drifting off, another unwanted guest had arrived – a tickle which could not be squelched began dancing gleefully in his upper respiratory passages, igniting a lengthy coughing fit. Eventually he spluttered into silence, chest heaving and brow beaded with sweat.
Great.
His complement of cold symptoms was now complete.
oooooooo
Pre-landing announcements over the PA ended his short, fitful sleep. Coming to, Grissom decided that he should try to be positive.
He was getting there.
Slowly, yes, painfully, sure, but he was definitely getting nearer to where he'd left his heart. Thinking of Sara, his libido leapt and his quickened pulse thumped uncomfortably in his tender head. He remembered her smile, bright, wide and gap-toothed, so dear to him that he felt his eyes moisten. Closing them, he breathed slowly, deeply, deliberately. In time he reached a happier place.
His positive attitude didn't last long.
Normally passengers continuing on the next leg of a 'direct' flight were permitted to stay on board when their plane made an intermediate stop. However, something to do with earlier problems in Boston meant they were required to de-plane. Drowsy after his nap, and grumbling to himself at that unwelcome news, Grissom didn't fully listen to the reason given. Why couldn't he just stay where he was? He'd be quiet, unobtrusive. He had enough sense not to voice these thoughts. The petulance that he knew would color his tone wouldn't help his cause, which was pretty much doomed to failure any way. If the airline wanted you off, you always ended up in the terminal. Smothering a cough, he glared balefully at the cabin attendant as he exited the plane, then promptly felt ashamed at his discourteous behavior.
Ruing the depths to which he had sunk, Grissom roamed restlessly for a few moments down a short stretch of Terminal 3, before deciding that the activity was making him feel worse. He ducked into Hudson News and Gifts to buy a Chicago Tribune. Waiting in line to pay, he noticed that Bears' gear and memorabilia were going cheap. Huh. No surprise there.
He'd spotted a few empty places in a slightly quieter seating area of the crowded terminal, not too far from the gate where he'd soon be re-boarding. Heading that way, he came to a coffee kiosk.
Usually Grissom drank his coffee black, but somehow today he had a curious craving for sugar and froth; he decided to indulge in a decaf caramel macchiato. When Sara had first ordered one in his presence he'd looked at her askance, but she'd cajoled him into trying it and he'd been surprised. The stuff didn't taste much like coffee, of course, though it did have a certain something about it. He could care less about the calories right now, but months of re-education made it natural for him to request nonfat milk. Sara would be pleased, Grissom reflected blearily as he squinted at the coins in his palm before giving up and handing over a bill.
Supplies in hand and wheezing slightly, he lumbered to the seating area, still contemplating Sara.
Sara, Sara, Sara. He seemed to be doing that a lot of late, repeating her name to himself. He derived a peculiar comfort from it; was it an incantation, a prayer, or simply a reminder that she was the light of his life? Hmmm. Thinking in clichés now. Grissom was unwell; he gave himself a pass.
He had told her that he would miss her, but he'd had no idea just how much. It was true, he'd discovered, that absence did indeed make the heart grow fonder. He chided softy, 'cliché man rides again'. Surely he could do better than that. Ah, yes: "Absence is to love what wind is to fire; It extinguishes the small, it kindles the great."
Leaving Las Vegas, Grissom had thought it was impossible to feel any more for Sara than he already did, but while away he had found that there were truly no limits to his love. It had grown uncontrolled, unfettered by reason, regardless of distance.
He was becoming misty again. He looked ceiling-wards and chewed on his lip, blinking the tears away.
He would barely have survived the last year without her, but even so he had been aware that he needed a real break. Not from her, he'd insisted – and he thought that she believed him – but from the daily grind, the relentless assault of case piled upon awful case. Grissom sighed in remembered relief at the timing of the Williams offer, the breathing space it had represented. Sara had been so understanding about his need to get away . . . If only she could have gone with him.
The accumulated weight from working nearly thirty years in the criminal justice system had been eating at him, dragging his spirit down, wearing on his nerves. Although he'd trained himself to step back from emotional involvement in cases, to relentlessly practice objectivity, it didn't always work. He shook his head faintly. It couldn't. And it shouldn't. He lived haunted by faces from the past, faces for whom there would be no closure.
Getting away had been the right idea. Away from the possibility of being woken up to deal with a bug-ridden corpse, away from the temptation to go to work to help the others out, away from the everyday horrors. At least until this vicious cold, he had been feeling much better – less tense, sleeping longer and more restfully, more positive about his CSI career. He could keep going, he had determined, though he was still contemplating for how long. What he had realized was that he didn't have to – and, more, he didn't want to decide it alone.
They could talk once he got back. Grissom nodded to himself and opened the newspaper.
Alone in the thronging crowd he sat, sipping his drink and reading the latest speculation on when Zambrano and the Cubs might reach a deal.
Grissom blew his nose, productively. In the present scheme of things, that was progress. To help it along, he took another decongestant capsule.
Boarding was announced for the Vegas flight. That, too, was progress. He went over to the gate and joined the end of the line.
oooooooo
As he boarded, Grissom snagged extra pillows and a blanket, then he settled back into his seat. Positioning the pillows carefully, he pulled his new cap down over his eyes and let his mind roam as he waited for the oblivion of sleep.
Yawning, he contemplated his cap.
It was already a favorite. A dark tweedy flat one, like his grandfather used to have, it had caught his eye in a little shop when he was strolling down a side street in Williamstown. But if truth be told, it was the fat black and white cat curled up sleeping in the bay window of the store that had first drawn his attention. He'd wandered in to say to hello to the furry bundle (inciting one briefly opened, very annoyed eye) and then realized he really did need some head wear for Massachusetts' cooler climate. He had never quite managed to see himself in a beanie, despite Sara's liking for them.
The cap had served him well in the unseasonably mild weather, until winter had arrived with a vengeance - in the last few days Grissom had seriously been considering ear warmers. Fortunately his timely return to Las Vegas had saved him from answering a tricky question: would vanity or common sense prevail?
oooooooo
Though the hour was late, baggage claim at McCarran was the usual madhouse, with eager tourists arriving from all points of the US and beyond, faces alight at the prospect of that big casino win or having a wild time on the town. Meanwhile the seasoned travelers waited resignedly, bored eyes flicking up to the screens to see if the carousel for their flight's bags had been announced yet.
After wallowing in self pity scant hours earlier, Grissom reflected that he was now over the worst of his cold. The decongestant was working, the cough was annoying but bearable and the bone-aching weariness was gone. He actually felt refreshed.
He had fallen asleep before take-off. Thankfully, he'd had the forethought to fasten his seat belt over the blanket and so hadn't been disturbed. He'd slept three and a half hours, waking of his own accord as the plane was lining up with the runway lights.
At last the board indicated that his baggage would be delivered to carousel 4. Hitching the strap of his leather satchel more firmly over his shoulder, Grissom headed over to stake a claim near where the bags would emerge. Again, it was a matter of hurry up and wait – he stood by the stationary conveyor belt, working his jaw and swallowing to clear his ears.
The belt started to move and several minutes later thumps below heralded the arrival of a few bags. Grissom checked a tag to confirm they were from his flight and set a lookout for one battered brown leather suitcase, inherited from his mother, and a hot pink LL Bean duffle, borrowed from Sara – he'd chosen distinctive luggage which would stand out amongst the ubiquitous black bags. He twirled his cap around on his forefinger.
Sara wasn't expecting him until tomorrow, no-one was, but he'd cut out of Williams a day early. Helped by a forecast of snow for the evening rush hour, Grissom had wrapped up his last seminar at the coffee break, and had changed his reservation to get out on the first flight available. He'd been packed and ready to leave for days, and figured that he could phone or email anyone important who he'd missed in his hurried departure.
The flight had landed at 11:05 pm, and after baggage claim he was going to head straight to the lab. He needed to get his body clock back to the nightshift schedule as soon as possible, and going to work was the way to do it.
Who was he kidding?
He wanted to see Sara, and he knew that she'd be working.
He'd wanted to surprise her . . . but as he stood watching others retrieve their belongings, Grissom wondered whether it was such a good idea. Trying her cell, it went straight to voicemail; he decided not to leave a message.
His thoughts were interrupted by the unmistakable sight of lurid pink canvas teetering at the top of the slope and rolling down in front of him. Grissom stooped to pick it up, and looked with renewed interest at the next bags.
oooooooo
What a time for his sense of smell to return.
Sara was ripe, and not in a good way. Grubby, smelly, in a shapeless coverall, fresh from a garbage dump.
She was riveting.
Sara was surprised, grinning broadly, walking backwards and almost fending him off as he practically chased her down the hallway. Grissom had to restrain himself; he was so near to grabbing her in that glass-walled public fishbowl. Yearning to be somewhere private, he embraced her with his heated gaze.
As she disappeared around the corner, he silently answered her parting words: Oh yes, I want to see all of you later.
He was sorely tempted to follow her into the shower room. Grissom dwelled on that delightful possibility for a moment before the report of a gun in the ballistics lab brought him back to his senses.
Work. They were at work.
Sighing, Grissom trailed reluctantly into his office to open his mail and attack the paperwork.
LA FIN
Grissom's quotation is from Histoires Amoureuses des Gaules: Maximes d'Amour by Comte de Bussy-Rabutin (1618–93), French soldier and poet: L'absence est à l'amour ce qu'est au feu le vent; il éteint le petit, il allume le grand.
A/n: If you've made it this far, how about leaving a review? I love hearing from readers.