Disclaimer: Don't own them
A/N: Look...I don't even remember writing this. I found it on my computer...and I didn't want to post it, but Kara made me. I'm sorry I did this to them, people. I'm a strong believer in happy endings...and I just don't know what happened.
"Hey." Her voice was low and rough, soothing and familiar and a smile wavered at the edges of her mouth. Just as he remembered.
"Sara." There was a quote in the back of his head about roses and names and sweetness, and he was sure it applied, but he couldn't think of it and it didn't matter because she was back. That jagged hole that had been cut into his very soul was suddenly refilled perfectly by the missing piece that was her.
Her smile left as he continued to look at her, his eyes trapping her as they tried to burn her image permanently in his mind. She was older now, though just as beautiful. Tanner from the Californian sun, filled out by constant meals though still slender and willowy. Six years, and he could see only one change. She was no longer tired.
"It's been great to work with you again, Grissom." He blinked, wishing that just once, when she had still been there and she had still been waiting, he had asked her to call him Gil.
"Yeah...yeah, it has been." She'd caught the killer, of course. He had never doubted that she would. In all the years he had known her, there had never been anything able to stop her...not even him.She smiled at him, that gap in her front teeth showing, causing her essence to twist more snugly into his soul.
She ducked her head, and he was startled by the way it tugged on his heart. He had forgotten what her mere presence could do to him. Had forgotten or repressed just how much he enjoyed it. "Well...uh, thanks for dropping me off at the airport, Griss..." That newly returned piece of him stirred, twisting in a warning. She glanced at her watch. "...My plane leaves in fifteen minutes." He'd been waiting with her for almost two hours now, not wanting to let her go, and she was too polite to tell him to leave. His whole body burned as the fragment trembled, struggled. "I guess I need to go."
He gasped against the pain, and she looked at him strangely, but even that was beautiful. He had realized, and he had been a fool, and now she was back, and he had found the missing piece. ...Would not a rose, by any other name... They stood awkwardly, as he waited for the messages his heart was screaming to reach his brain so he might act. Suddenly, she stepped forward, her arms slipping around his waist, and her lips, so soft and sweet, grazing his cheek for the briefest of instances. Just as quickly, she pulled back, and picked up her bags. "Well, Griss..."
"Sara?" A question. No, there could be no question. "Sara." He licked his lips. He was complete, the puzzle solved. She was the answer. "Sara, I..."
But she stopped him, and he caught a glimpse of the woman he had known when she left. Weary and down-trodden. She shook her head. "No. No. Not this time, Griss."
"But Sara," He heart the internal ripping, felt the darkness closing back in on him. Fool...fool. He would not disagree.
She shook her head once more, her gaze returning to her watch. "It's too late, Grissom." Her whisper was sad, and the finality of it made reality waver. She raised her eyes to meet his. "All of it. It's just..." No. No! He cut her off, unwilling, unable to listen any more, stepping forward, his mouth desperately finding hers. She was sweet and soft and perfect and she fit. She made him whole.
But the sensation left him as her lips did, her fingers tracing his mouth for an instant before she dropped her arm, her head giving that damning little shake again. A tear trailed down her cheek. "Goodbye, Grissom. Goodbye." And she was gone.
He did not know how long he stood there, waiting as the hole inside him burned and ached. He waited for her to come back, unaware of the tears slipping down his cheeks. This wasn't the way the story was supposed to go. He wasn't supposed to be standing here, lost and hopeless in a crowded terminal, watching her leave him to return to her new life...the one where he could never follow, because he was too late.
Too late. That's really what it was, this time. What it would be for every time after when he woke up and she wasn't by his side.Too late.
You fool...