Disclaimer – I do not own CSI; they belong to Alliance Atlantis, CBS, Anthony Zuicker and other entities. I just borrow them for fun; this story is not for profit.
Rating – K
Genre – General, kinda fluffy
Summary – "The road to S.S. is a rocky one, don't hesitate to take it and don't be too late to do so." GSR, as always.
Spoilers – 6.19 Spellbound, but everything up to season seven is fair game.
A/N – A million thanks to Melody my Beta extraordinaire, without her this story would be unreadable.
Spellbound
The smell of vanilla incense was in the air; the light was low and had a yellowish color to it. To compliment the environment, her voice was lower and a bit huskier than usual. "I see an S; does that mean anything to you?" Her eyes were closed and before Grissom had time to reply, Madame Corina, as she called herself, added, "Make it a double S, S.S. Does that mean anything to you?"
"No." If you paid attention to the tone of Grissom's voice and to his face, you could tell he was getting bored by the second. Madame Corina or Mrs. Shermer, as Grissom called her, was Randy's mother, and Randy Shermer, besides being the assistant coroner, was one of Gil's closest friends in L.A. As a courtesy to him, Grissom put up with the many readings and looks into his is, "Oh so bright future," as Mrs. Shermer liked to say.
Corina Shermer was an old lady; due to a terrible car accident a few years back, she moved in with her one and only son during her recovery. During this time, she finally had enough time to dedicate to her "sixth" sense. Several people dropped by during the day to get their palms or the cards read; sometimes a small crystal ball was involved as well. Mrs. Shermer never charged for her services, since she considered them a gift to help people follow the right path in life.
Mrs. Shermer developed an interest in Grissom since his first visit, claiming to have several dreams about his past and his future.
Grissom had to admit, if only to himself, that Mrs. Shermer got a couple of facts right: dead father, lonely childhood, and he almost, almost, fell for the last one; "such gentle hands that work with the Lord's smallest creatures," but then he thought that Randy had mentioned his profession to the woman.
"Are you sure? 'Cause it's written all over you, S.S." She seemed lost in thought for a second, and by the time her eyes focused on his, all the trace of Madame Corina was gone, instead there was only the sweetness of Mrs. Shermer. "Maybe you are going on a trip somewhere, taking a Steamship?"
"I'm sure Mrs. Shermer that S.S. doesn't mean anything to me, and I'm not getting on a boat anytime soon. In fact, I'm moving to Las Vegas, no steamship to take me there." He said with a smile, trying to lessen the blow to her, another miss to Madame Corina. Her face went from complete sweetness to seriousness in less than a second. "Either way Gil, believe me, S.S. will make a huge difference in your life."
The intensity of her eyes, the tone of her voice as she said it and the way she sounded so sure of it, made Grissom feel uneasy, he shifted on his seat and took his hands out of her grasp, nearly knocking the small crystal ball off the kitchen table.
"Hey Gil, sorry to keep you waiting; I found the books." Randy was waving two thin books at Grissom. As he walked into the kitchen, he noticed the crystal ball his mother was trying to hide and the smell of vanilla in the air. "Mom, I told you, Gil doesn't believe in those things. Don't bother him."
The woman's face fell and Grissom instantly intervened, "It's okay Madame Corina," he said, making sure to use her professional name, "I found it quite interesting, and to be honest with you, you did get a couple of details right." As Grissom finished talking, a small triumphant smile appeared on the woman's face.
Grissom continued to visit them once or even twice a month, and despite Randy's eye roll, his mother insisted on reading Grissom. During those readings she had "seen" so many things, useless things Gil thought, about his future. The double S was just the beginning; one occasion she told him that a man with an H would take S.S. away from him, and just one week after that she told him that a male with an H would bring S.S. closer to him. Unless he was going to buy and sell a Steamship several times to a man whose name started with H, he didn't see the importance of Madame Corina's premonitions.
On his last visit, before moving to Vegas, she insisted on taking one last look into his future. After she was done, with an incredible big smile on her face, she told him, "Your brothers and sister will be so glad to have you around, and the boys will be too. You'll help them become men." For a moment, Grissom considered telling her he was an only child and that all that was left of his family was his mother and aunt back on Marina Del Rey, but seeing her so happy, he just smiled and nodded.
A strong hand shake and a semi-hug was his goodbye to Randy, however, the old woman would have none of it. She pulled him down into a bear hug and kissed him on the cheek. As Gil was pulling away, she whispered in his ear, "The road to S.S. is a rocky one, don't hesitate to take it and don't be too late to do so."
Forensic entomologists don't grow on trees, and just after six months of working with the Las Vegas Crime Lab, he was invited to give an introductory seminar to the crew of the San Francisco Crime Lab. She was sitting in the third row, fourth seat to the right, her hair in a pony tail and wearing a red shirt that showed a little too much cleavage, just a little, he thought. There was a notebook on her lap and a multicolored pen in her right hand, the same hand that rose in the air every 20 minutes or so with the most complex questions he had ever heard from a level one CSI.
She was cute when she over talked. Kept saying something about a case, with worms or something, he was having trouble fallowing this conversation. Not because it wasn't interesting, on the contrary her line of thinking was simply amazing, but his concentration kept traveling to the north part of her shirt, as discreetly as possible. "How about a cup of coffee?" the invitation came out of nowhere, one minute he was pretending to listen the next he was asking her to out, well… sort of.
"That'll be nice, Dr. Griss… I mean Grissom." He found the soft blush of her cheeks rather cute.
A cup of coffee after class soon became lunch everyday for the rest of the seminar. It was after lunch on his last day that she handed him a napkin with her e-mail address and phone number; she only signed her initials on the bottom right corner. There it was, with sparkly blue ink, "S.S."; Madame Corina's words from almost a year ago came crashing into his head, "a huge difference in his life." Just four weeks after meeting Sara Sidle, she had already left a mark on his life.
An e-mail was sent every week and a phone call was made once a month, but that wasn't enough, so it became an e-mail every day and a phone call every Saturday afternoon that lasted for hours and always ended on a sad goodbye, followed by an e-mail the minute after the line went dead. And that's the way it went for a little over two years.
It took a shot CSI and a phone call on a Thursday night to bring Sara Sidle to Las Vegas, and it only took a smile that promised so much more to get her to stay.