Name: Locard's theory.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Rating: PG-13 maybe?
Description: Grissom, Sara and the confusion of influence.
From the story: "Its touch is very gentle, it leaves no prints."
Author's notes: Whatever. Um, check out song lyrics for "Long December" by "The Counting Crows" and "Volcanoes" by "Damien Rice".
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Sound:
A lecture hall built for 115 students. Of the 204 that show up only 168 are on time. Only 103 bring textbooks. 74 arrive with scientific calculators, 39 bring the recommended 1 liter water bottle and 5 come fully equipped with pre made notes, though 2 of which have been scribbled directly into the margins of their, This-Costs-More-Than-A-Months-Rent Entomology and Forensics text books.
A man who cannot possibly be old enough to be their teacher arrives through the public entrance doors approximately 20 seconds late and takes his place on stage. The first thing Gil Grissom ever says in front of a live audience is something about the eating habits of locusts.
"Never mind," thinks each student in turn, "he's old enough."
Grissom wonders what percent of one's audience must understand a joke in order for the joke to become funny. Of 204 students in various states of attendance, exactly four react to his.
He determines, "More than 1.9 percent."
Two minutes later she stumbles in- the sight of her before the sound has reached him and, "This," he thinks, "is the first time I've ever noticed the difference between the speed of light and sound."
She is hectic and empty handed and he is talking about the gestation of mosquito larvae. He wants to tell her she's too late- thinks maybe he will but then-
"Oh, this is the Burnidel case! Didn't you solve that by identifying traces of Red Brush Algae on the perpetrator's clothes?"
By the time she has made her way to the front of the center aisle she has stumbled twice and he can't take his eyes off her.
And so it is that after four hours in a lecture hall, 203 half suffocated science majors press slowly from the back doors while one student remains behind, attempting to read the notes she has scrawled in messy faux abbreviations upon her arms. "This isn't anything," thinks Grissom and when she makes her way towards the stage he watches her, feeling magnetized. At once attracted and repelled depending on the angle he approaches this.
"You've been studying." He deduces.
"If that's what you call it."
He glances up from his illegible lecture notes in time to witness her touch her face, entranced-
"What do you call it Miss Sidle?" -and touching only her lips now, this careful contemplation on her face but when she pulls her hand away, about to answer, she sees his expression and knows instantly, "Oh god! The ink!"
In a study hall in San Francisco Grissom watches a twenty three year old with scribble from fingernails to elbows slowly smudge a trace of blue along her bottom lip- he doesn't know what to think.
She rubs at the stain with her cotton sleeve and leaves handprints on her shirt, lip marks along the cuff like hypothermic kisses. "Okay, I'm glad it's from a thrift store," she says, but under her breath- "shit."
He supposes it was only such a small amount of blue that brought the concept to his mind- that curious idea of touch made visible. He supposes it maybe wasn't even important in the end and perhaps he would have loved her anyways, she was just a virus- can't be cured. But she looks up at him with her lip to her white shirt- her eyebrows knit in determination and what he doesn't say is, "It's been nice meeting you."
"I have a flight in the morning."
"Good luck in your profession."
"Goodbye."
"Are you familiar with Locard's theory?" he chooses instead, because of course she is and of course she's delighted to hear the name of such an old friend.
"He believed that whatever event occurs-" but she cuts him off eagerly- "We leave traces."
"And we bring traces with us when we leave."
"So, what are you going to bring from this event, Grissom?"
The fact that she's left off the prefix should really disturb him but all he can think to say is, "I've been looking for a- a strong cup of coffee."
It's so easy. Neither has been sleeping lately.
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Taste:
Later, he has syrup on his palm when he associates her with pancakes. "Something new," he says…
A hairless man with a gun. Catharine on the stairs and Grissom beneath the flickering hundred-watt bulb, heart in his throat for the first time since he can remember.
"Well, no-" he thinks, "There was Nick with that cold case." A broken fish tank and another moment made memorable by the presence of a gun.
So maybe it's the feeling of community created by the presence of another gun. Four pounds of metal and he could be dying in emergency, dead in emergency, dead in a basement with a murder's hands covered in what is left of a person.
It's a bit of a shock to Catharine when he nods his head in agreement and says, "Okay. Pancakes." But no one argues. Maybe it takes facing death for Grissom to allow simplicity to creep in.
And they go, just sit and let the yellow Formica-sparkled light illuminate the morning. They order all kinds of things that no one's ever even though about ordering before- "Carpe Diem" and all of that.
Apparently seizing the day extends as far as chocolate chips and whipped cream and sprinkles on the whipped cream, banana flavored batter (Warrick) and coffee flavored syrup (Sara). Nick is sure to let Sara know that the preservatives in sprinkles cause hair breakage and Sara calmly lets Nick know, "guess where you can put that lovely factoid?" –and life is something transcendent, yes-
But Grissom sits quietly, feeling his pulse in his chest:
"Well no, there was Holly Gribbs," and, "Gil, she's dead," and, "Oh God, this used to feel like dying but now it's only…"
He is adrenaline buzzed and stutter shook- not thinking accept that she's almost touching him beneath the table and he wants to prove it- wants to define something- maybe anything or maybe just this thing. He really isn't thinking just now.
Sara caught a ride with him to Ed's Pancake World- brushed her hair into a pony tail in the 2 inch by 2 inch visor mirror and said nothing until they were pulling into the parking stall. His hand on the door handle and she was painted healthy colors in the morning sunlight so it came as a surprise to Grissom when she said, "Tonight, when you feel this, if- if you need to… well you know, if you just need to think with someone…"
In Ed's with Elvis singing something about 'conversation' in the background, their orders arrive. For Grissom who is not used to eating in the proximity of others, he spends much of the first half hour listening to the low hum of the ceiling fan, remembering to eat when Catharine shoots his plate (never him) a glance every now and then. It certainly does not seem strange when Nick reaches across the table and forks a bite of Catharine's Toffee Kahlua Cakes. Not even such a surprise when Sara sneaks a testing of Nick's Apple Pie A La Creme Cakes- her theft going unnoticed while Nick is checking out the waitress.
And so maybe it is the feeling of community created by the presence of that gun, but when Sara gasps a laugh- just so slightly too harsh- and he can smell the bitter sweet of coffee syrup on her voice, it's Grissom who knows she's been holding her breath…
"Well no, there was us outside the Monaco." and, "Wouldn't you if you were married to Mrs. Roper?" and, "Oh God, this really isn't anything. This didn't used to feel like-"
It barely even seems a surprise when he reaches across the table and takes a careful slice from the corner of her pancake- places it in his mouth.
"This doesn't have to mean-" he's thinking and the others apparently agree. They skip right over the moment, discussing Nick's new car. "Honestly, it came with three traffic tickets," Nick says and Sara's leg is an inch from his own beneath the table. "Sharing the fourth sense," thinks Grissom, "should not be permitted in a public location."
When he carefully sets down his fork, he has syrup on his palm and he's not sure he'll ever think of her again without the taste of sticky pancakes. "Something different," he says very lightly to her confused expression, but Oh God, this didn't used to taste like anything.
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While the busker plays Three Marlenas:
From the empty auditorium, with only the smell of fresh sweat and stale chalk, they find a coffee shop and, "I think anything would be a welcome alternative to the campus," Sara says.
She's been spending eighteen hours a day in various work-ethic promoting buildings. He inquires as to her activities and she surprises him by saying, "Exams."
He should really try to remember; she's only twenty-three. But then he steals himself and tells her the joke about the locusts- stupid as it is. He thinks he might even get the wording a little wrong but he tells himself: it's for a study. He needs to know.
Of the two, both are ultimately true, but only one in the way he means immediately.
She laughs when she discovers the punch line, ducking into her cup to smother the sound and no, no, no, he really shouldn't be here.
He swallows his coffee fast enough to burn his tongue- diversion is as efficient as morphine if you do it properly- and he's hoping to divert the manic intensity of her creeping through him like coffee one hundred proof.
He thinks he needs to revise his hypothesis. It's not about the percentage of people who laugh at a joke but the identity of those who do. He'll never tell this one again.
A girl with, "cockroach cochlea?" scrawled across her knuckles like some secret language he could lick from her skin and when she laughs he has no aspirations left for it.
Their chatter is quiet and their words are often embarrassingly long but her caffeinated meanings come as bruising conclusions.
She is blindingly premeditated and, "Sara Sidle," he thinks, "must be what is meant by 'a quick study'".
He'll feel this tomorrow.
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Smell:
A Decomposing body and Grissom standing in the hall- without disgust, without judgment.
"Lemon's" he recommends before leaving her there, looking in through the soundproof window at David. David could love her- maybe does. For a moment she thinks…
But that would be a lie of the worst variety and she knows it.
Seven hours later she has her hands in human soup when nick comes in- that sound in his voice like he can't figure out how to use his nose. She names the body; tries to feel something, anything that might be what He would feel…
She feels only soup.
Realizing this, she is driven to frustrated convulsions and, of the three options provided she chooses dry heaving over the other, saltier alternative. Never mind laughter, she's too out of practice.
That afternoon is when Hank, she will later believe, made the decision to stay with his girlfriend. She finds it almost tolerable because he did not decide not to be with her. Of course, emotion is never such a simple thing. People have invisible values and, like some game show, the values are unknown until the moment they become thought.
"Perhaps-" she thinks later, gasping into the shower nozzle, breathing in the smell of hand squeezed lemons, "-that is what David has that we do not. Nothing but patient emotion for the Victims."
David could really love her, shower her down with the taste of clean hot steam; wash everything worthless and heavy, so gently down the drain until all that was left of her was shiny silver things- rings and brilliant teeth. She thinks for a moment that maybe she could care for him, kiss him in the break room at 7 PM and amidst the DB's on her midnight lunch hour. A lie of the worst kind- half truth- but isn't that really what she finds so tempting?
Grissom is all thought. She has felt it in his hands, touched the things he has, like the way seashells remember the ocean- the intelligence of his hands is imprinted forever.
In the shower, gripping lemons like painful secrets, Sara comes to understand that she is as much a vessel for these imprints as any other instrument he could possess. She turns the cold water nearly off and scalded- frustrated in every sense of the word- she considers the possibility that there may be a fourth kind of convulsion she has not yet explored…
Tomorrow David will look at her as though he knows- smile shyly without disgust, without judgment-
She will excuse herself and breath into the fountain in the hall for a moment before returning. In the end David sees the desperation- not in her eyes but in the way she moves, so careful with the hips- and says only, "You smell like lemon's."
She buys five pounds of the bitter fruit from a family grocery store she has never been in before. Francine's is on the way to her house and she needs the convenience. She can't excuse anything if her actions lack convenience. She pays at the counter (twice the price) and drops two pennies with numb hands, forcing the change angrily into her pocket. She knows he will notice eventually- distances herself from the idea that he'll feel anything at all. He will never say a word.
That's okay; it's only for her anyway. There is a connection she cannot put into words, but scent, she knows, is the strongest sense tied to memory and she believes it started there.
