My muse decided to yell at me until I put pen to paper (er... fingers to keyboard?) about this last episode.
Disclaimer: I don't own CSI. This work is unbeta'd, therefore all mistakes are my own.
For the year and a half that they'd been together, Tuesday nights had always been "date nights." Grissom and Sara would both try to get off work on time, they'd have dinner out somewhere—always keeping an air of professional courtesy, of course—then one would go back to the other's place and they'd sit on the couch and watch movies.
It wasn't until Thursday that Grissom realized he'd spent Tuesday night with Heather.
That night, he went over to Sara's with a bunch of fresh-cut flowers. Daisies. They were her favorite, and Grissom could only hope that his peace offering would be acceptable. He heard Bruno wailing inside, the radio on, and could smell something delicious wafting through the air outside her door. She was singing along to something, really just humming along, to the point where he couldn't hear the words, only the sweet sound of her alto in the kitchen.
He unlocked the door slowly, and thought it best to announce his presence. "Sara?" he asked as he entered, closing the door shut behind him. The radio clicked off, and silence descended as he turned from the door to look at her. She was standing in the kitchen, hair pulled back into a ponytail, wooden spoon in hand. Some tofu was sizzling in the pan in front of her, and an orange smudge of sesame oil was smeared across one cheek. Bruno sat, faithful as ever, at her feet, probably attempting to snatch any stray soy product that Sara happened to drop on the floor.
"You're back," she said nonchalantly. "Set the table, would you?"
Grissom pulled two plates, napkins, and silverware out of the cabinets behind her as she returned to the tofu, adding sesame seeds and a dash of soy sauce. At one point, he had been so excited to explore this kitchen, learning its secrets and adding memories at the same time. It was odd, really, that he felt like a stranger in it yet again.
"I missed dinner on Tuesday," he remarked, trying to start a conversation, but only receiving a grunt in reply. "I'm sorry."
She looked up from her cooking. "Don't. I… let's just eat, okay?"
Grissom nodded his assent, and Sara scooped out the tofu onto the two plates. Grissom pulled out Sara's chair for her—he hadn't done that in a while—and she dropped into it. He took the seat next to her. She started to eat, so Grissom did the same. After a moment of awkward silence, he realized that she wasn't eating at all, merely pushing the tofu around her plate in an attempt to do something. He'd discovered early on that when Sara felt uncomfortable, she liked to be doing something with her hands. As a college student, she bit her nails. After her near-DUI, she'd taken up knitting, which her PEAP counselor insisted could substitute for a beer in one hand and a shot glass in the other. She was uncomfortable, so her hands were busy. It was as simple as that.
He leaned over and planted a light kiss on her near cheek. She sat still, not leaning in but neither shrinking from his touch. Honestly, he didn't know which would have been worse: knowing that Sara wasn't planning on forgiving him, or knowing that she was. But this… This coldness was unexpected. In the past eighteen months that they'd been dating, she'd never shut down so completely, so fast.
"How's she doing?"
The unexpected question broke the uncomfortable silence. "Who, Heather?" Grissom cleared his throat a bit, hesitated, and answered in a quiet, unsteady voice which Sara had only heard a few times. "She's surviving. Her ex-husband got full custody of Zoë's daughter, but he brought her by so Heather could, you know, meet her."
Sara barely acknowledged that she had heard him. Instead, she rose and began to clear her untouched tofu into a leftover dish from under the kitchen counter. As he heard her rustling back in the kitchen, he thought about the events of the past days.
"I'm glad she's doing okay," she assented quietly. "You seemed worried."
"She's my friend," Grissom turned over his shoulder to glance at her.
"You don't need to defend yourself, Gil. I told you to do what you needed to do."
He rose and joined her in the kitchen, turning her so she was facing him. She refused to meet his eyes, instead trying to turn back to the sink. "Sara, what is it? I know something's bothering you." He paused, then added, "you can always talk to me."
"Except while you're busy screwing a dominatrix."
The comment was under her breath, but Grissom heard it loud and clear. He was taken aback by the venom in her voice. Could she really be this jealous of Heather?
"Honey…"
"Don't start with me, okay? Honestly, Gil, did you think I wouldn't notice that instead of coming home on our night, our one night of the week, you left the lab about fifteen minutes after she did? And then, the next morning, lo and behold, here comes Catherine telling me all about how you and Heather were practically doing the mattress mambo when they got to her place. Christ, I'm an investigator. Did you really think I wouldn't notice? Or did you just think that I wouldn't care?"
She threw herself out of his arms and went to the couch, curling up in a tiny ball at one end. She started flipping through channels on the TV, leaving Grissom alone in the kitchen, wondering what the hell had just happened.
"First of all…"
"I don't want to hear it." She turned the volume up, and Grissom could hear the nasal voices of some medical soap opera character complaining about… well, he didn't really care. All he could focus on was the hunched-over form of Sara, sitting on the couch clutching a pillow, watching some crappy soap. He washed off Sara's plate first, then took his plate and all the silverware off the table and washed them carefully. He'd been wrong, and it killed him. It was killing him. And it would continue to until he could make it right.
He dried the dishes, then his hands, and walked into the living room. He perched on the opposite end of the couch and watched the doctors in their form-fitting scrubs talk about infertility, transfers due to botched inter-office romances, and amnesia, none of which he was particularly interested in hearing about. A commercial break came, and both remained on their ends of the couch. Then another, and another. They sat that way for the better part of an hour, as far apart as it's possible to be while sitting on the same couch.
The episode ended, and Sara reached for the remote and shut off the TV. Grissom moved to shift closer to her, but she got up and headed for her bedroom. At the door, she turned.
"Don't forget to lock the door on your way out."
Grissom gazed at her, wounded. "Why, Sara?"
"She's the only woman that's ever rattled you, the only one who's ever gotten under your skin. We're together for a year and a half, but you drop everything when she's in trouble. Including me. Including our dinner plans. And you expect me to just, be okay with that?" She turned so that her back was facing him and took a deep breath. "I can't. I can't do it. So, for tonight, I need you to leave. I can't…"
She turned, and saw that his eyes were glistening with tears. She turned back, willing the tears pushing at her own eyes not to fall. "Goodnight, Grissom."
Sara's form retreated into the bedroom, and the door slammed behind her. It took Grissom nearly five minutes to move from the couch. When he finally rose, he turned towards the door—then turned back to Sara's bedroom door. He put his ear to the thin wood and could hear her sobbing. She would be leaning against the door, unable to sleep, unwilling to come back outside.
He had made her cry, and he couldn't do anything.
He sank to the floor, his back resting on the cool wood of her bedroom door. He began to cry as well, silently, bearing the pain of the three women he had disappointed.
They sat that way, backs against the same door, crying for each other. After a few hours, Sara could have sworn she could hear him whispering against the door.
"Forgive many things in others, nothing in yourself. Ausonius, a Roman poet, said that. Sara, I can't ask for you to forgive me. I've hurt you so badly, again and again. How am I supposed to ever make it up to you? But know this, above all things, Sara: I love you. I always have, and I always will. I don't think I could ever forgive myself, if I lost you."
She leaned her head back, the crown of her head touching the wood. "Go home, Grissom."
He shifted to face the door. "Wherever you are, there is my home. You know that, don't you?"
A single tear rolled down her cheek as she whispered, "I used to."
He heard her rise, then the soft squeak of the bedsprings as she climbed into the bed. He waited a moment, then rose as well and opened the door slowly. He changed into his pajamas quickly, then joined her beneath her quilted cover. He guided her chin towards him, so she was looking in his eyes. Again, she would not hold his gaze.
"Sara, listen. Please, just for a moment. Honey, I admit that I dropped you for Heather. I missed our dinner. I was wrong." Sara pulled her face away, but he guided her back to his eyes. "If I could do it over, I would do the same thing. Heather needed me."
Tears threatened to overtake Sara again. "Gil, I needed you too."
"But you, my one and only love, will always have me."
She finally met his eyes. "How do I know, that you won't just…"
He kissed her softly, barely a breath of a kiss. "Because I need you, more than you know. And as long as I have breath, I want to be yours."
"This doesn't fix everything."
"It doesn't have to," he replied softly. "But for now…"
She snuggled into his embrace. "For now, it will do."
"I love you, Sara. With all of my heart, and all of my mind, and with everything I have to offer, I do love you."
Her response was to snuggle deeper into his chest. But as his breathing evened out and he began to descend into sleep, he could have sworn he heard a reply:
"I do love you, too."