Many thanks to my marvellous beta Illman
Disclaimer - CSI or the characters do not belong to me!
Perfection
I caught myself humming yesterday. Very unlike me but it was a song that captured my mood perfectly. Okay, so depending on what you read, the song was originally an ode to heroin but I have taken it, changed the sentiment unalterably and made it mine. Lou Reed's melancholy tone and grisly subject matter belies the beauty and upbeat nature of the lyrics. Yesterday was such a perfect day as were the 365 days before that and I'm glad I spent them with her.
When I woke up this time last year it seemed far from perfect, it was just like any other day. I woke up alone and went about my daily routine. The strange thing is I never saw anything wrong with that before, it was normality, the way I lived my life. Looking back now from a different perspective I can see that my life was hardly a life at all, more like a caricature of one. When I was a child dreaming of what I would be when I grew up I definitely did not dream of that. I had become the scary man from my childhood that lived down the street. A man that no one ever saw and the children made fantastic stories about. I can still see them in my mind's eye, gathered tentatively on the other side.
of my imaginary garden gate, whispering tall tales and daring each other to go knock on my door to see if I'll come out. Admittedly I may be uncharacteristically prone to hyperbole in the telling of this particular story but the essence of my analogy remains true. I remember wanting to be scientist when I grew up but that was not all I saw in my future. In my immature state I assumed I would get married and have babies of my own because thats (that's) what adults do, right? Instead of a wife and family I had my bugs. If Sara could hear me now she would most probably make a wise crack about cockroaches being my surrogate children and beetles being my one true love. Although I generally pretend to ignore her and occasionally
shoot her down with a patented Grissom 'I'm not amused' look, she always makes me laugh inside with her smart comments and sarcasm. People say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit but in Sara's case I can not see how that is true. She's always managed to be the exception to the rule. Anyway, a year ago yesterday my life changed. I kissed Sara Sidle.
The kiss started out as chaste. We were both tired after a wrapping up a particularly harrowing case that had an adverse affect on the whole team. Sara and I were the last to leave the lab, I know in my case it was because I didn't really have anything to go home to and I would imagine it was probably the same in Sara's. She stopped by my office and asked me if I wanted to go get some breakfast with her. She stood in the doorway, her stance and manner echoing a time not long previous when she asked me out to dinner and, I, weighed down with my own problems and insecurities said no. This time I said yes. I don't know why I did. I had long consigned my non-relationship with Sara to the rubbish heap, convinced that I had destroyed any hope of getting as close to her in reality as I did in my dreams. We went to the local diner, the one we always went to with the rest of the gang but never just the two of us. I remember exactly what she ate, exactly what she wore, exactly what she smelled like and what she tasted like when my lips finally met hers. She tasted like heaven and earth rolled into one, of sunny days and honeysuckle, of a word I'm using far too much, perfection. The initial kiss was short and full of sweetness, the second was long, deep and senusous and the third, well that would be giving away far too much information. Suffice to say I woke up later that day and I was no longer alone. I was curled around the wildly amazing body of Sara Sidle. This is how I wake up every morning now, spooning her with one hand under her neck and the other either on her smooth, flat stomach or cupping her small, perfectly-formed breasts. She moved in with me three months after our first kiss. After three years of denial and frustration, we ran full pelt into our new relationship. Catherine was worried it was too soon but I told her that it was actually to the contrary, it was not soon enough. I spent three long years on my own when I could have spent them with Sara. Now that surely must be the definition of time wasted. I have come alive since I have been with Sara and once again I can see a wife and maybe children in my not too distant future. I am completely and utterly head of heels in love and I am no longer afraid to admit it. In fact I want to shout it from the rooftops, I want to run through the corridors of the lab yelling at the top of my voice 'I love Sara Sidle'. I feel like taking out full page ads in all the newspapers and magazines in Las Vegas declaring my love for this woman who has turned my life upside down and inside out. I want everyone to know that this truly gorgeous and highly intelligent woman is mine. Sara would admonish me if she heard me describe her as 'mine' and tell me quite rightly that she is not a possession and that the only person she belongs to is herself but she knows in her heart that we belong to each other. We're like Snoopy and Woodstock, Watson and Crick and Ben and Jerry, great on their own but unbeatable together.
Did you know that the name Sara is Hebrew and its direct translation is princess? How can a person's name completely sum up how I feel about them? However, Sara is precocious not precious, modest and simple as opposed to extravagant, the total opposite of the traditional interpretation of the word but she is my princess. I revere her. She is noble, intelligent, curious, vibrant and beautiful. She is also deeply compassionate and her empathy has caused her more heartache than I care to think about. Sara is simply one of the most amazing yet at the same time maddening people I know. She neglects herself and this I find unforgivable and is often the cause of the rare arguments we have. How can someone who means so much to me and more do this to herself? She 'forgets' to eat and refuses to sleep in favour of overtime. Sometimes I think she's punishing herself, but, by hurting herself she's also hurting me by proxy. I can not bear to see her in pain, it twists my heart in knots. As much as I want to believe I truly know her, I have to face up to the fact that Sara is an enigma, always has been and always will be. I will unravel her mystery bit by bit but I am in no rush to do so. If I push her I might lose her and that would quite literally break my heart. I don't think I could bear to lose her now. It would be like experiencing Heaven and then being suddenly cast out into the rivers of fire that carve the valleys of Hell. It makes me recall the very wise words of Cassie James, you never know what you need until you find it, the one thing that changes everything. I got lucky, I found perfection and its name is Sara. Anyway, Its not as if I don't have the rest of my life with this incredible creature to figure her out. It's one more thing on a very long list I have to look forward too.
Among the things I have discovered over this past year are what Sara's middle names are. Sara, being Sara, has two. She was almost embarrassed to tell me although I don't know why as to my mind they are the most beautiful names I have ever heard. Amaris and Seren. Amaris is an old English name meaning child of the moon and Seren is a Welsh word meaning star. She shrugged when I told her what I thought of them, brushing off my compliments with a nudge of her shoulder in to mine and the explanation, "Well that's what you get as the offspring of hippies". She then accused me of only loving her for her utterly romantic moniker. However they are just names and to completely misquote Shakespeare, Sara Amaris Seren by any other name would still be as sweet. She mock gagged when I told her as much, but I know that it was just an act, she just couldn't let the facade of Iron Fist Sidle fall in case someone was waiting in the wings to turn the compliment sour. I recognise (recognize) the technique, it was one I employed throughout my time at school when compliments were always backhanded and people were constantly trying to find ways to torment you. Emotional bullying is crueler than physical bullying, it makes you question everything. That was maybe part of my problem with Sara, why it took me so long to face up to my feelings. I couldn't understand why a woman like Sara who only needed to glance in the direction of any of the lab techs in the employ of the LVPD to make them go giddy at the knees, would be interested in me. I am not blind to the body I inhabit. I don't pretend when I look in the mirror that the bowlegged, pot bellied, graying man before me isn't the real me. There is no young, slim man waiting to get out. Why would she want to be with me, what do I have to offer her? I still don't know the answer to that question but I no longer want to. Sara is with me and while logically I probably still should be insecure as there are plenty of young Turks waiting in the shadows for their chance, strangely I am not. She says she loves me and wants to be with me and I believe her. The only time she has ever lied to me was about Hank and even then it was a white lie constructed at the spur of the moment to save hurting me. I can't say I condone it but the fact remains she lied because of me and in a bizarre sort of way it has made me love her even more. When I was busy denying my feelings, one minute flirting with her outrageously and deliberately shooting her mysterious little smiles and dropping cryptic comments that I knew she would analyse for days just so she would be thinking of me, and the next holding her at arms length because I was scared at the direction in which I had been pushing things, she was unwavering. Sara never doubted or stopped believing no matter how many times I built her hopes up only to crush them. She had faith. This makes her the best friend I have ever had as well as the one person that I have ever truly loved.
She will rouse soon. I can see her through the open doorway on the bed, lying on her stomach with her fantastically beautiful long legs splayed and using her left arm as a pillow. The other arm is resting in the spot I vacated not so long ago. Its hot out so she only has on her white tank top and white cotton panties, the long abandoned sheet tangled up around her feet. I can see the slight curve of her bottom and the indentation of her lower back. Her tank top doesn't quite reach the waistband of her panties and a strip of milky white smooth flesh is exposed that is begging to be kissed. She loves it when I wake her up like that, with a trail of soft kisses over the small of her back and I love the result. Her silky dark hair is over her face, obscuring my view of her undoubtedly peaceful expression. She sometimes smiles while she's sleeping, it makes me wonder what she dreams about. I like to think its me but that's my ego talking. I love watching her sleep. It is the one time I can stare at her to my hearts content and soak in her beauty without her getting paranoid and asking me what is wrong, whether she has something on her face or simply telling me to "quit it". It doesn't really matter though as I have her image etched into my brain and have done for the past ten years. For a decade she's been the last thing I see at night and the first thing I see in the morning. I can see her stirring now. I'm going to go and awaken my sleeping beauty with a kiss.
Disclaimer - CSI or the characters do not belong to me!
Perfection
I caught myself humming yesterday. Very unlike me but it was a song that captured my mood perfectly. Okay, so depending on what you read, the song was originally an ode to heroin but I have taken it, changed the sentiment unalterably and made it mine. Lou Reed's melancholy tone and grisly subject matter belies the beauty and upbeat nature of the lyrics. Yesterday was such a perfect day as were the 365 days before that and I'm glad I spent them with her.
When I woke up this time last year it seemed far from perfect, it was just like any other day. I woke up alone and went about my daily routine. The strange thing is I never saw anything wrong with that before, it was normality, the way I lived my life. Looking back now from a different perspective I can see that my life was hardly a life at all, more like a caricature of one. When I was a child dreaming of what I would be when I grew up I definitely did not dream of that. I had become the scary man from my childhood that lived down the street. A man that no one ever saw and the children made fantastic stories about. I can still see them in my mind's eye, gathered tentatively on the other side.
of my imaginary garden gate, whispering tall tales and daring each other to go knock on my door to see if I'll come out. Admittedly I may be uncharacteristically prone to hyperbole in the telling of this particular story but the essence of my analogy remains true. I remember wanting to be scientist when I grew up but that was not all I saw in my future. In my immature state I assumed I would get married and have babies of my own because thats (that's) what adults do, right? Instead of a wife and family I had my bugs. If Sara could hear me now she would most probably make a wise crack about cockroaches being my surrogate children and beetles being my one true love. Although I generally pretend to ignore her and occasionally
shoot her down with a patented Grissom 'I'm not amused' look, she always makes me laugh inside with her smart comments and sarcasm. People say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit but in Sara's case I can not see how that is true. She's always managed to be the exception to the rule. Anyway, a year ago yesterday my life changed. I kissed Sara Sidle.
The kiss started out as chaste. We were both tired after a wrapping up a particularly harrowing case that had an adverse affect on the whole team. Sara and I were the last to leave the lab, I know in my case it was because I didn't really have anything to go home to and I would imagine it was probably the same in Sara's. She stopped by my office and asked me if I wanted to go get some breakfast with her. She stood in the doorway, her stance and manner echoing a time not long previous when she asked me out to dinner and, I, weighed down with my own problems and insecurities said no. This time I said yes. I don't know why I did. I had long consigned my non-relationship with Sara to the rubbish heap, convinced that I had destroyed any hope of getting as close to her in reality as I did in my dreams. We went to the local diner, the one we always went to with the rest of the gang but never just the two of us. I remember exactly what she ate, exactly what she wore, exactly what she smelled like and what she tasted like when my lips finally met hers. She tasted like heaven and earth rolled into one, of sunny days and honeysuckle, of a word I'm using far too much, perfection. The initial kiss was short and full of sweetness, the second was long, deep and senusous and the third, well that would be giving away far too much information. Suffice to say I woke up later that day and I was no longer alone. I was curled around the wildly amazing body of Sara Sidle. This is how I wake up every morning now, spooning her with one hand under her neck and the other either on her smooth, flat stomach or cupping her small, perfectly-formed breasts. She moved in with me three months after our first kiss. After three years of denial and frustration, we ran full pelt into our new relationship. Catherine was worried it was too soon but I told her that it was actually to the contrary, it was not soon enough. I spent three long years on my own when I could have spent them with Sara. Now that surely must be the definition of time wasted. I have come alive since I have been with Sara and once again I can see a wife and maybe children in my not too distant future. I am completely and utterly head of heels in love and I am no longer afraid to admit it. In fact I want to shout it from the rooftops, I want to run through the corridors of the lab yelling at the top of my voice 'I love Sara Sidle'. I feel like taking out full page ads in all the newspapers and magazines in Las Vegas declaring my love for this woman who has turned my life upside down and inside out. I want everyone to know that this truly gorgeous and highly intelligent woman is mine. Sara would admonish me if she heard me describe her as 'mine' and tell me quite rightly that she is not a possession and that the only person she belongs to is herself but she knows in her heart that we belong to each other. We're like Snoopy and Woodstock, Watson and Crick and Ben and Jerry, great on their own but unbeatable together.
Did you know that the name Sara is Hebrew and its direct translation is princess? How can a person's name completely sum up how I feel about them? However, Sara is precocious not precious, modest and simple as opposed to extravagant, the total opposite of the traditional interpretation of the word but she is my princess. I revere her. She is noble, intelligent, curious, vibrant and beautiful. She is also deeply compassionate and her empathy has caused her more heartache than I care to think about. Sara is simply one of the most amazing yet at the same time maddening people I know. She neglects herself and this I find unforgivable and is often the cause of the rare arguments we have. How can someone who means so much to me and more do this to herself? She 'forgets' to eat and refuses to sleep in favour of overtime. Sometimes I think she's punishing herself, but, by hurting herself she's also hurting me by proxy. I can not bear to see her in pain, it twists my heart in knots. As much as I want to believe I truly know her, I have to face up to the fact that Sara is an enigma, always has been and always will be. I will unravel her mystery bit by bit but I am in no rush to do so. If I push her I might lose her and that would quite literally break my heart. I don't think I could bear to lose her now. It would be like experiencing Heaven and then being suddenly cast out into the rivers of fire that carve the valleys of Hell. It makes me recall the very wise words of Cassie James, you never know what you need until you find it, the one thing that changes everything. I got lucky, I found perfection and its name is Sara. Anyway, Its not as if I don't have the rest of my life with this incredible creature to figure her out. It's one more thing on a very long list I have to look forward too.
Among the things I have discovered over this past year are what Sara's middle names are. Sara, being Sara, has two. She was almost embarrassed to tell me although I don't know why as to my mind they are the most beautiful names I have ever heard. Amaris and Seren. Amaris is an old English name meaning child of the moon and Seren is a Welsh word meaning star. She shrugged when I told her what I thought of them, brushing off my compliments with a nudge of her shoulder in to mine and the explanation, "Well that's what you get as the offspring of hippies". She then accused me of only loving her for her utterly romantic moniker. However they are just names and to completely misquote Shakespeare, Sara Amaris Seren by any other name would still be as sweet. She mock gagged when I told her as much, but I know that it was just an act, she just couldn't let the facade of Iron Fist Sidle fall in case someone was waiting in the wings to turn the compliment sour. I recognise (recognize) the technique, it was one I employed throughout my time at school when compliments were always backhanded and people were constantly trying to find ways to torment you. Emotional bullying is crueler than physical bullying, it makes you question everything. That was maybe part of my problem with Sara, why it took me so long to face up to my feelings. I couldn't understand why a woman like Sara who only needed to glance in the direction of any of the lab techs in the employ of the LVPD to make them go giddy at the knees, would be interested in me. I am not blind to the body I inhabit. I don't pretend when I look in the mirror that the bowlegged, pot bellied, graying man before me isn't the real me. There is no young, slim man waiting to get out. Why would she want to be with me, what do I have to offer her? I still don't know the answer to that question but I no longer want to. Sara is with me and while logically I probably still should be insecure as there are plenty of young Turks waiting in the shadows for their chance, strangely I am not. She says she loves me and wants to be with me and I believe her. The only time she has ever lied to me was about Hank and even then it was a white lie constructed at the spur of the moment to save hurting me. I can't say I condone it but the fact remains she lied because of me and in a bizarre sort of way it has made me love her even more. When I was busy denying my feelings, one minute flirting with her outrageously and deliberately shooting her mysterious little smiles and dropping cryptic comments that I knew she would analyse for days just so she would be thinking of me, and the next holding her at arms length because I was scared at the direction in which I had been pushing things, she was unwavering. Sara never doubted or stopped believing no matter how many times I built her hopes up only to crush them. She had faith. This makes her the best friend I have ever had as well as the one person that I have ever truly loved.
She will rouse soon. I can see her through the open doorway on the bed, lying on her stomach with her fantastically beautiful long legs splayed and using her left arm as a pillow. The other arm is resting in the spot I vacated not so long ago. Its hot out so she only has on her white tank top and white cotton panties, the long abandoned sheet tangled up around her feet. I can see the slight curve of her bottom and the indentation of her lower back. Her tank top doesn't quite reach the waistband of her panties and a strip of milky white smooth flesh is exposed that is begging to be kissed. She loves it when I wake her up like that, with a trail of soft kisses over the small of her back and I love the result. Her silky dark hair is over her face, obscuring my view of her undoubtedly peaceful expression. She sometimes smiles while she's sleeping, it makes me wonder what she dreams about. I like to think its me but that's my ego talking. I love watching her sleep. It is the one time I can stare at her to my hearts content and soak in her beauty without her getting paranoid and asking me what is wrong, whether she has something on her face or simply telling me to "quit it". It doesn't really matter though as I have her image etched into my brain and have done for the past ten years. For a decade she's been the last thing I see at night and the first thing I see in the morning. I can see her stirring now. I'm going to go and awaken my sleeping beauty with a kiss.