Response to Yahoo group csi-grissomsara challenge. Must include the following:
GSR
Reference to Committed
Sara or Gil receiving flowers at work from someone who is romantically interested in them
Intimate physical contact between Sara and Gil.
A statement from Gil about what type of woman that excites him.. Kind of fudged on that one. I always seem to do that on challenges.
Some crossover to another procedural drama
One or more of the following lines/quotes: "You are starting to believe your own lies." "Kissing is a lost art." "Even God gets tired of waiting." "Would you let someone tie you up?" "I like my body."
A/N Thanks to Mcrocker, Marchandbook and AussiRayne for the awesome beta work.
She turned her key in the lock. He was standing at the sink, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. She didn't look at him as she put her keys in the brass seashell on the counter.
Gil was incensed, livid, worried, scared and nervous. Desperate to numb himself, he had cooked nearly everything in the kitchen. Sauces and pasta bubbled and boiled, emitting a dense fog over the small space. Brownies with macadamia nuts rose lightly in the oven next to bread brushed with olive oil.
He looked at the platinum chain that disappeared into her dark shirt. She pulled the chain out so he could see that she still wore her ring, that she always had the heart shaped diamond close to her heart.
You think it's cheesy don't you? A heart shaped diamond for my engagement ring.
I think if that's the one you want. That's the one you shall have.
"Thank you for the flowers," She said. He left two roses in her locker before the shift had started.
Before the nightmare had begun.
Brown eyes took in the half empty bottle of scotch. She knew he would have slammed back one glass and sipped another. He would search for the cigarettes he thought she didn't know about. When he found they were no longer taped to the bottom of his office chair she knew he would pull out his grandfather's pipe from the strong box he kept under their bed.
He raised one eyebrow. She mimicked the gesture.
She had no idea what to say to this man. Her man. It was too much for him. For them. There were night terrors, crippling anxiety that affected everything but work, excuses to friends and family when she couldn't leave the house, when he would not leave her side.
"Cath. It's me. Yeah Sara's not doing to well. Tell Warrick we are sorry. I know Cath. She feels bad about this. I know there's no reason to be. I told her. Maybe you could talk to her? Will you please talk to her? She's not used to people caring…not used to everything being okay."
He loved her. She loved him. It wasn't enough. It hardly ever was. They knew that. Still they tried. They tried harder than anything each had ever done before. The pattern imprinted itself day after day, year after year. Water that found it's own level often overflowed.
"Where have you been?" He stirred something blood red and heavy with her favorite vegetables. He tasted it. Too sweet. Sara liked it that way.
"I just needed some time."
He spoke gently. "Sara, you should have called. I was worried."
"I can't do this." The words sliced through the foggy air and beat a path to his heart. He closed his eyes and thought of the first time he kissed her. He needed to know that she still trusted him.
"Where have you been?" He knew exactly where she had gone. Mac, the CSI supervisor in New York, could GPS any cell phone powered up or not.
She stared at him for one full minute. "At the park, then the movies."
He nodded and pulled two heavy light green plates out of a cabinet. Plates Sara loved. Plates that were far too expensive. Plates he had brought home when she had confessed that she always wanted matching plates when she was a child
"We never had anything that matched. The glasses never matched. The plates never matched. Nothing matched."
God she loved him.
He spoke in a whisper of pipe tobacco. A man deserved some secrets, indulges that he could brag to his friends about. She was glad he had that.
"You are not a burden. You are freedom. You are not difficult, you are complex. You are everything good, perfect and wonderful and even the bad is better than I have any right to. You are brave and wonderful and you make me wish I was twenty years younger so that I can have more time with you."
"You shouldn't have to take care of me at home and at work." She scratched her arm ferociously like an addict in need of a fix.
He frowned and put one hand on either side of her face resting his elbows on the marble counter that separated them.
"Isn't that what you do for me? I am not giving up on you because you almost got killed doing your job. I know that's what people have done to you. I am not them. There is nothing you can do to push me away or make me leave you."
He kissed her forehead, silently telling himself that she was alive and okay and there now. With him. "I thought you were angry."
She giggled knowing exactly what he meant. "What…"
"I should have come after you faster."
Sara smiled at him. She would not cry. "Oh Gil. I didn't need that. You did exactly what I needed you to do. That minute you took to find me. That minute you made sure that he couldn't hurt me again. It was exactly what I needed. You are exactly what I need."
She lifted his hand and kissed the palm of it.
"You're sure?"
Neither was conscious of how the role of protector ebbed and flowed between them.
"I'm sure."
He kissed her. He was a kisser, a very good kisser. He understood that kissing was a lost art. That if you kissed the right way with the right amount of inflection you could tell someone you love them or that you didn't.
He loved her without condition or price, without equivocation.
"I am sorry." They said at the same time.
"Okay?" He asked.
"Okay." She replied.
End