Pairing: GS
Summary: Grissom ponders 'the talk' from "Snakes."
Disclaimer: I own no rights to anything regarding CSI. No infringement is intended. I'm certainly not making any money from this. I'm just noodling because TPTB frustrate me. Nyah.
Spoilers: Snakes S5
Fault
"Look...let's put all of this behind us. And start over..."
That's what he had meant to say. With emphasis on this, so she would know he didn't just mean the obligatory cliche of the PEAP sessions. Followed by a meaningful, direct look into her struggling eyes, to enforce that he wasn't running away, and hopefully to see reflected back from her that he wasn't too late.
Grissom sat in the dark of his office. It was time to go home, he'd gone through his routine to leave, but he just couldn't bring himself to stand up and walk out the door.
He simply couldn't respond with any eloquence when Sara caught him off guard like that. He'd started panicking as soon as she'd said, "You've always been a little more than a boss to me."
It wasn't like he hadn't thought about how he should behave, the next time Sara opened up to him. He'd rehearsed every possibility in his head a million times. It wasn't like he hadn't had time to prepare, or hadn't had plenty of time to wait. The time had been considerable since she had last attempted any personal conversation with him.
So he'd reeled from the boss comment, but thought, I can do this. Stay focused. Then, she hit him immediately with the statement about moving to Vegas for him.
"Did she just say that?" he thought, dismayed. He simply had to stall for a minute to think of what to say. Then he could resume his plan of reassuring her that he still cared, that he had screwed up immeasurably, but was finally willing to admit it.
"...definitely my fault." Sara said.
Grissom walked to his car, and wondered why in the world she would say that, when it was so obvious it was almost, if not all, his fault. He felt he had to stop her taking the conversation in such a negative direction, and he still hadn't thought of a thing. So he'd resorted to boss mode, and blurted out the first thing he could think of...an inane question about the status of her counseling. Anything to get her off blaming herself for the whole mess.
"Yeah. Yes." she said. He still hadn't figured out how to say the ever elusive thought that would convince her that enough was enough, he might be an idiot, but he wanted to try if she'd still have him.
"And?" he asked. Stall, stall, stall. He was sure she saw his reaction to her as completely confusing, since his thought processes seemed to instantly go into slow motion when she was around. How could he explain that it wasn't that he was trying to avoid her, it was because he wanted so much to do the right thing, for both of them, sure, but especially for her. How important it was to not screw it up. How her honesty and clarity made him feel like he was a dead planet in a decaying orbit, and she was a speeding comet. She moved quickly and relentlessly while he sat there, petrified, as usual.
He was petrified even now. The guy in the mid-life crisis sports car behind him honked, and Grissom wondered how long the light had been green.
He was determined to get it out, at that point. Let's start over. Please.
"Let's just say that.....sometimes I look for validation in inappropriate places." Sara said, painfully.
He panicked. He was suddenly struck with the horrifying possibility that after all, she only liked him because he was a mentor figure, and had come to the conclusion it was just a stupid, misplaced crush. His worst fears confirmed.
"Look....let's...ummm....", he stammered, cursing himself. He knew he should take the risk and say it anyway. If nothing else she deserved the right to flatten him, to take him out cold the way she must have felt when he turned her down for dinner so long ago.
You may not get another chance, he told himself. There might be a possibility of turning this all around, even now.
And then she'd stopped him, and given him an out. Gracefully and kindly, with no hurt in her eyes. The next thing he knew, she was gone (again), and he was watching her walk out of the office as purposefully as she'd walked in, while he sat there stupefied. As usual.
Just when he'd thought that maybe it wasn't too late, and had finally felt ready to do something, it was all taken away by fear again. The only difference was that, instead of Sara being hurt by his inability to say anything, she'd given both of them an out. Maybe that was simply because she was over him and realized she didn't care anymore, if she ever had at all. Maybe that was what the damn counseling sessions he'd insisted on for her had gotten him.
He trudged into his as-always empty house and made his way to the kitchen, where he hoped to find a beer and some kind of food that required little effort.
Grissom sat and tasted the irony of the tables being turned, and he didn't like it. Somehow this hurt even more. He realized she didn't seem hurt, for once, and she must have felt this way after all the instances when he'd run away, changed the conversation or simply acted like he didn't know what she was talking about. Sara wasn't devious, or malicious. This wasn't about her deliberately forcing him to perceive rejection. He'd done that all by himself, and the disgust he felt for himself now, and for how he must have made her feel in the past, made his heart ache in a way he didn't think he'd ever felt before. The ever-present logical part of his mind noted it with curiosity, but the rest of him felt dirty and ashamed.
He knew he could safely justify his way out of this, even now. After all, he should be content that his pessimistic, insecurity-driven theory was seemingly finally proven correct, and that Sara had finally realized her attraction to him was superficial and for the wrong reasons. She had moved on, and he would've been a fool to pursue her. He'd made the right decision, as hard as it had been, although it had cost him the initial rapport they'd had. That he had treasured.
What total shit, he muttered to himself. Martyrdom wasn't noble, no matter how he tried to convince himself. He finished his beer, and having given up on the chips and hot sauce, angrily flipped channels on the remote, once again reminding himself that he hated this couch and needed to get another one.
Grissom simmered for the time it took to consume another two beers, alternating between the usual self-pity and self-loathing. He realized the other usually present emotion, fear, was absent only because in today's conversation Sara had taken it out of the equation by her quiet and calm "Okay."
Suddenly he had a fleeting thought of hope. Could Sara have meant that she had realized she couldn't blame him when he failed, for whatever reason, to reciprocate her feelings? That she felt it was her fault for trying to make him into something she felt he must not have wanted to be? That would fit in with her insecurities, and always-present willingness to take on more responsibility than she should.
Could she really think that? Was there any possible way that could be what she meant? Grissom wanted that to be true. He felt like a heel for wanting that still, after being such a coward. He found himself returning to the many-bulleted list of reasons of why Sara couldn't possibly like him and why it would never work because he wasn't good enough. Self-defeating thoughts to enforce a negative self-fulfilling prophecy, he mused. I'm the one that needs counseling. And another beer.
He was so tired of going back and forth. It was like a scientific hypothesis that couldn't be proven in reality, only in theory. Some bizarre variation of quantum mechanics. More nights than not he sat staring at the tv for hours, thinking about her, like he was doing now, until he was fairly certain he had reached a point of exhaustion where he could crawl into bed and sleep.
Sometimes the dreams were good, there was always the chance of that. Sometimes they weren't, and if he was lucky, they'd be severe enough he'd wake up and stop them, hopefully to go into a sleep where there were no dreams at all. But even if the dreams were good, he was only happy for a moment when he woke up the next morning before he realized nothing had changed, and it was just another day.
In the midst of brushing his teeth, Grissom thought about his original and strongest reason for denying Sara -- the job. That certainly didn't mean much anymore, not after what Ecklie had managed to do to his team. Not even a good sacrifice for Sara; she still cared about the job, but it was obvious that she was headed for burnout, and for all he knew that was partially his fault too. It certainly didn't seem to matter if he stayed away from her or worked cases with her, anymore.
The thing he'd told himself over and over was his reason for existence and sacrifice just didn't hold up to scrutiny now. For either of them. And even if that changed, and work became a good place to be again, it didn't seem like a worthy sacrifice when he thought of what it would be like to come home every night to find Sara.
Grissom reiterated to himself again that if nothing else, Sara deserved an open invitation to slam the door on his hopes. Selfishly, he didn't think it could get any worse. Worst-case scenario, he would just go back to being the shell of the man he'd become over the last year.
He crawls into bed and swears, for the millionth time, that this is the last time he will allow himself to avoid telling Sara how he really feels. He wonders if he'll still think the same way in the morning, instead of brushing it off to the hours of desperate loneliness he experiences every night in the time before sleep, fighting himself to fight for her. He finally realizes those few hours before sleep have turned into almost every waking hour, and it's been that way for a long time.
Just before he drops off a voice in his mind says, courage in love makes all the difference, and something tells him that it will prove true this time, if he can just get to her before the panic sets in.