A/N: A bit of a character piece, this time for Grissom. Sort of runs with The Rubber Tree Plant.
Disclaimer: Alas, again, not mine.
The Soap Box Derby
It was gravity that was his undoing. Some time in his later life, as gravity took hold, as energy propelled him forward into that known, and yet, unknown mass, he had the fleeting thought that, perhaps, he should have been a physicist. It was the irony, of course, that ended any further contemplation. Still, there had been that pause, that one brief pause, when he'd considered the science of physics, gravitation, motion and energy. It was only the second time in his life he'd experienced such a pause.
The first time any such pause had occurred, could be traced back to his boyhood. It was the summer he was twelve, going on thirteen. He was a boy about to become a teenager, a youth reaching his adolescence at the end of a turbulent decade, an individual finally seeing beyond his quiet community and gaining a glimpse at the wider world around him.
Gilbert Grissom did not look much different from the other boys in his sheltered, suburban existence. To glimpse at him at that age may inspire a certain nostalgia for an earlier time. He was a skinny kid, tall, light brown hair cut short in comparison to the age, but long enough to curl messily over his ears, pushed down by the Dodgers cap he sported. He dressed, most often, in a striped t-shirt, the stripes, green and blue and grey, running horizontal, a pair of well worn blue jeans, the bottom hems a little frayed, and a dirty pair of converse sneakers, Chuck Taylor All-Stars.
His summer may have begun the same as the previous summers, with daily hikes along the shoreline to check out his morning's bounty, but for one brief moment in time, his attention was drawn from the washed up animals on the beach, to an event that captured the attention of the entire country, and further, the entire world.
His life was not, by any means, typical in comparison to other lives of the sixties, or even other lives within his small community. Characteristic of the times though, when something happened, he, like millions of other Americans, tuned into CBS and Walter Cronkite. As history unfolded on that particular July day, he sat crossed legged in front of the T.V. set, waiting for it to happen.
He remembered glancing at his uncle Herb in the kitchen, watching as his uncle pushed out of beneath the kitchen sink to watch with him, and then turning back to the television, eyes fixed to the screen, listening to Walter Cronkite and letting his hands run the translation for his mother, seated off to his side. He remembered sitting in awe, watching "man on the way to the moon,"1 and later, watching the fuzzy screen as man made that first small step. He remembered his mother's anxious hands waving before him, her eager expression waiting to see what was said, as his own speechlessness matched that of Walter Cronkite. At that awe inspiring moment, he couldn't summon the awareness to let his hands translate.
For minutes, all he was aware of was the two men, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, bouncing around on a powdery, grey surface, while Michael Collins waited in the shuttle. He could remember the wonder he felt, watching as Neil and Buzz seemed to float between each step. Though he knew that with a smaller mass, the moon did not have the gravitational force of earth, and thus it was for this reason that allowed the two astronauts to take these airy steps, to him it seemed as though they were defying gravity. He wanted, just once, to feel as though he could do the same.
Gravity, it seemed, played a large part in his growing up, though it was more the gravity of situations than of objects. In his boyhood, it was the gravity of his father's death, the gravity of his mother's hearing loss, that held the greatest impact. He knew that gravity well, for it seemed to weigh him down.
It was on the steepest slopes that gravitation held its greatest power. Wanting to minimize the impact of gravity, he avoided slopes and developed a strong braking system. He learned control. It takes a lot out of a person to fight such a force though, and even as a young man, he felt bone weary. It was for that reason, he let gravity take hold in certain areas.
He allowed his passion to take him. He channeled that passion into appropriate avenues. And, he felt lighter and more open in doing so. He walked a line between control and release, maintaining control in some areas, letting himself be released in others. It was in this he developed his love of the roller coaster.
The thrill in the roller coaster came from its dependence on gravity. It was the one thing he could not stop. Once he was strapped in and the ride began, he was no longer in control. Gravity could take hold. He could not brake, but was subject to every twist and turn, drop and corkscrew the ride would take. He enjoyed the anticipation of the slow ascent as gravitational energy built up, the sudden plunge of that first drop as gravitational force took over and caused the roller coaster to accelerate down the slope, the force of gravity as energy propelled the car forward, the release he felt when gravity could assume its natural duty, the feeling that for once, man had created something in harmony to Universe's laws. Not that he wasn't guilty of trying to defy those laws. He still yearned to defy the same gravity he embraced on the roller coaster.
It was his braking system. A part of the braking system was to not get too close, for objects of mass attract, and thus gravity still held danger. He kept his distance. Man was a pack animal and yet, many times, he tried to isolate himself from that pack. He had that braking system and he used that system with mates. It was "I'm sorry," and the brakes were on. The brakes were easily enough applied. In this, he was safe. He could let intrigue carry him, for he could always brake. The force of gravity was not strong enough and suddenly he's Neil Armstrong, bouncing above the surface, indulging, but not committing. He would not take a firm step, nor had the pull ever been strong enough to do so.
Until it was. The only problem was that he couldn't let go. He couldn't release the brake. It wasn't that he didn't want to be loved, for what man could honestly say he didn't? It wasn't that he prided himself on his bachelorhood either. Why he braked was something he could not answer. He only knew he could not let go.
It baffled and amazed him, how someone could have gone through what she had, how someone whose introduction and early window into love had been pain, could let go so easily. He'd grown up knowing how warm and comforting and wonderful love could be. She had known none of that, and yet, she was still so willing to lay it all out on the line. At first, when the initial narration of her past came out, he'd been afraid she was repeating patterns. It was her defiance of him and of everything else that assured him she wasn't. No, she was merely braver than he. She embraced gravity where he couldn't.
In the tentative days leading up to something more, when he was perched on the top of that hill, gravitational energy built up, but still fighting gravity, he'd asked her about it. They'd been on a case, working out of town, staying in a hotel, and going over the evidence in her room one night. He'd sat across from her, his legs falling over the queen sized bed parallel to the bed she'd chosen for herself, the pads of his feet resting against the green shag-carpet floor. His elbows had rested on his thighs. His chin had rested on his clasped hands. He'd listened as she spoke of possibility, and he'd known that, somewhere within her, she still held out hope for the possibility of them. Even given time and hurt, and never really knowing a positive image of love, she was still ready to lay it all out and to let go, and he asked her about it. He'd asked her how she could be so willing after witnessing everything she had. He'd even told her of his past, of his father dying, and silently wondered if his uncertainties stemmed from seeing a love lost. However, there was too much simplicity in that and he'd quietly dismissed it. He'd waited for her answer and found her answer even simpler.
"You just trust."
How could she trust? Given her past, given what she'd seen on the job, how could she trust in something as fragile and as volatile as love?
"I just do," she responded, and it was far too simple.
"How?" he asked. "How?" He couldn't. He trusted in his team and he trusted in science, but he could not trust in love. Emotion is far too fleeting, even though his feelings for her had never been.
She pulled her knees up to her chest and stared down. He watched as her thumb played over her fingernails. He waited as she fought for a way to explain, but how do you explain trust? It seemed obvious she knew that she could not, that nothing she could argue could convince him. He still waited, wanting to know, feeling as though his balance hinged on her response. Her thumb slid back and forth over her middle nail. Her other arm pulled her knees in tighter. She didn't look up.
"I had a foster brother once, who decided to built this go-cart. We carted it to the top of Telegraph Hill so that he could ride down." She paused. Her thumb moved to her ring finger, pushing on the cuticles. "When we got up there, he chickened out." She looked up, her eyes barely meeting his. "He told me to get on and try, so I did."
His mouth opened. It closed again. Across from him, Sara shrugged. She looked back down at her thumb, still flitting over the nail of her ring finger. "Anyways, I climbed on, holding onto his hand, keeping myself in place at the top of Filbert Street. Then, I just let go." She paused again, a shorter pause, and when her story continued, her voice held a conviction that had permeated into his being, though his mind would, for some time, refuse to acknowledge it. "It was scary as hell, and probably even stupider, but I'll never forget that ride, or that rush, and my foster brother...he missed out on it."
He was silent. God, even then, she'd been playing with fire. Had she always played foolhardy with her life, made questionable decisions when it came to her welfare?. A part of him wanted to ask her what she was thinking, taking such an unnecessary risk, but he knew a lecture would be in vain. It had already happened. He was sure she'd seen enough to realize the consequences now, even after having survived the event then. She seemed to know what he was thinking, for she pursed her lips and took a moment before continuing. "I remember looking down the hill and seeing my route and thinking, 'this is it.' I thought, 'if I make it down this hill, it is so going to be worth it.' If I'd needed to, I could have bailed on the route down, but I wasn't about to bail at the top just because it was scary. It wouldn't have been worth it if it wasn't scary. And even if I didn't know whether or not I'd make it unscathed, I trusted that I'd be alright, so I let go. Sometimes you just have to trust and let go."
He let go on roller coasters, but that was a controlled environment. There was a certain sense of security in that. The rest of life was another matter. He'd witnessed what happened when one let go in the real world. She'd witnessed what happened when one let go in the real world. How could she trust? How could she have trusted enough to let go when she hadn't trusted enough to let go in other things? How could she trust love?
"I just do," she replied.
The problem was, he didn't. "I can't," he said, and though honest, he saw how his answer saddened her, even when she'd already resigned herself to it. A part of him had wondered if he ever could. It was too delicate. Still, he was perched on that summit, and he'd climbed that hill himself. He'd left her hotel room that night still holding on, still perched on top.
For some time longer, he'd tried to fight the pull, but this time, gravity was too strong. When it came to her, his braking system had only ever allowed him to slow. Gravitational force would eventually take hold. This is it, he thought, and it was. This is it. Isn't that what she'd said before going down that hill? It was. This is it, he thought again. This was it, it in every possible meaning of the word. She'd known that. He had to finally acknowledge it. He tipped forward, plunged headlong into the wind. Gravity, as was written, was his undoing.
He stared down at her nude body, gently tracing a finger over her beautiful figure, letting it travel so lightly over her smooth skin. I should have been a physicist, he thought, a soft smile grazing his face. Perhaps, if he had been, he would have better understood the force he'd been trying to defy. For now though, he was enjoying biology.
Fin
A/N: 1 "Man on the way to the moon" comes from the mouth of Walter Cronkite during the original CBS broadcast of the Apollo 11 launch.
A part of me was intrigued by Gil Grissom's character being named for Gus Grissom, and wondered if a young Grissom, watching the moon landing back in that summer of '69, had ever contemplated being an astronaut.