AN: Another how did they…? I'm experimenting with new styles and new formats. I hope you like. Please review. I love to read. Also, if anyone out there, like me, is in love with the how did they stories and knows of any really amazing ones, please PM me and direct me to them? Much appreciated….
Oh! And could I BE more excited about season 9 now that I know a certain someone is making an appearance?
Disclaimer: These characters and CSI do not belong to me. I merely borrow them. In fact, I feel that they borrow me, as I am seldom in control of what and when I write about them. The heart wants what it wants, and GSR is it.
P.S. CBS, for future ref, the heart does not want character deaths, breakups, sketchy glossing over of important GSR related things and or anything dodgy with Lady Heather. Thanks.
Monday.
I don't know what to do about this.
Enlightening, Grissom, she shrugged inwardly.
Sara's step was light as she left the lab, letting the words that had both tantalised and burned her thread over and over through her tired mind. She took a deep breath.
Okay. Alright. Have it your way.
"Sara." She turned.
"I'm sorry."
"For what?" She cocked one eyebrow.
"You know what." She shook her head.
"No need."
He paused, turning the words over in his mouth before speaking. She got there first.
"If you don't know what to do, I can't argue with that." Sometimes, lying was so much easier and altogether quite enjoyable.
He tilted his jaw.
"Right."
"So.. uh.." She made to walk away.
"Sara."
"Yeah." She folded her arms across her chest, expression light.
"When I said, I don't know what to do about this, I meant, our situation."
"Yeah," she said, quickly, "I got that." He looked away.
"Our working situation." That she had not expected. Though still fuzzy, the slim chance that he considered they had another situation that needed to be distinguished from their working one was a chance worth having. Grissom continued, and she had to admit she enjoyed how long it took him to get each sentence out.
"Look. You won't be surprised to hear that I find you attractive." Assume nothing, she thought, biting back a small gasp.
"But," he went on, "you will also not be ignorant of the implications of me even telling you that, let alone anything more." She looked at her feet. More? At that moment, she could neither believe that there was anything more.. anything.. than hearing him say these words. Nor could she help herself but want it. More.
"What I'm trying to say, Sara, is that it can't happen. Not while we work together. You know that." Sara's mouth went dry.
"What you may not know is that I'm sorry about it." He waited what probably seemed like a reasonable amount of time for her to respond, and when she didn't, he forced a small half smile, and walked away. She watched him retreat.
Well isn't that nice, she thought.
Tuesday.
The cut on her hand had glazed over, if not begun to heal. Work was everything it ought to be; busy, important, challenging.
He was getting out of his car as she was getting in hers. He had been to a scene, she was going to make an arrest. She had exactly seventeen minutes to meet Brass.
"Hey Sara," he said, as they approached one another.
"Hey," she replied, walking right on by. She got into her car, buckled her seat belt and started the engine in one fluid movement. She pulled out of the lot quickly, mapping out in her mind where she was headed. She'd never give in to GPS. She lifted her phone from her pocket as it rang, flipping it open without looking.
"Sidle."
"Are you okay?"
"Grissom?" As if she needed to ask. One syllable and she knew that voice.
"Yeah. Are you okay?"
"Perfectly." She said, with warmth.
"Okay."
"Okay," she replied, sunnily, "see you later." Her smile had slipped into a wide grin as she flipped the phone shut.
She was sure she remembered someone telling her an investigator never said can't. In fact, she had a suspicion it had been Grissom.
Wednesday
"Hey guys." Sara dropped a pile of case folders on to the break room table and kicked her bag under it. She could smell coffee and she wanted it.
"Hey," Greg returned, and the others murmured and waved in turn. Grissom shuffled in behind her, bearing a similar stack of files and heading for the coffee, a mug of which Greg was now pushing into her hand.
"So, uh, I have some news."
"Trace results?" Nick's ears pricked up.
"No," she replied. "Other news."
"What?" Catherine asked, narrowing her eyes.
"I'm moving to swing."
There was a moment of stunned silence. She wasn't facing him but she heard him put down the pot, too quickly, turn, too slowly, and gape at her back, too late.
"Why?" It seemed to come from all of them at once. She shrugged easily.
"Long story short, I've been suffering from really bad insomnia, and it's getting out of hand. My doctor's tried a lot of things but eventually she said the best idea would be to try changing my routine. Apparently some people just aren't built to sleep during daylight hours."
"You can't switch!" Greg whined.
"I know it'll be weird, but I'll still be around, and I'll be a lot happier if I can sort this out, so.." Sara tailed off as she felt Grissom behind her, still frozen to the spot.
"Wow. Well, it won't be the same without you, Sar," Nick said, his brown eyes wide beneath a furrowed brow.
"You guys understand, though, right? It's nothing personal. I pretty much think it'll suck, working for Ecklie, but I've got to give this a try." Sara continued.
They did, of course, as she'd known they would. One by one they tried to talk her out of it. Even Catherine placed a friendly hand on her arm as she left, winking, flicking her hair and whispering in a low voice that she thought girls were supposed to stick together.
Eventually, they were the only ones left. She turned, and the look on his face made her want to race into Ecklie's office and undo the mess she had created.
"Is this a joke?" He asked.
"No," she replied.
"You're breaking up the team?"
"I can't be a good member of the team if I'm not fully functional, you know that." He nodded, warming up a little.
"I didn't know you were having trouble sleeping."
"I've always had trouble sleeping. But lately.. I need to sort this out." He nodded again.
"Okay."
"I only went to Ecklie because I didn't know if there was a gap on swing, but it turns out there are two, so he let me switch right away."
"When?"
"Next week."
"Is this really what you want, Sara?"
"More sleep, yes, I want that. Ecklie, well, no, I don't really want that." She laughed. "But a shift pattern that means we, uh, don't technically…work…together… " his eyes grew wide. "Yeah, I want that."
"Sara. Tell me you didn't do this because of what I said."
"Okay," she said, brightly, and pursed her lips in a little pout, "Lets go back to my official reason for switching," she paused, "and keep pretending that's true."
Damn her if she wasn't turning the tables on him.
Thursday
Ecklie was a pain already. She'd guessed as much. But half way into her first shift and the incessant ass-kissing and patronizing were worth their weight in gold for the expression now permanently etched on Grissom's face. He was surprised. Or speechless. She loved it. Pay your money. Take your choice.
Sara enjoyed the daylight hours, although she was yet to notice any fringe benefits in the sleep department, an excuse she had decided was only half a lie. Give it time, she thought. To think she may soon be sleeping like a baby, at the right time, as well as pushing a few well thought out buttons. Bargain.
Her coffee tasted better at eight pm than it ever had at two am, and she cradled it happily in one hand while thumbing through crime scene photographs on the brightly lit layout table.
Grissom knocked. She took her time looking up.
"Just came to see how its working out, your new hours."
"You want to see if I've had enough of Ecklie yet?"
"I thought you might be missing the team."
"Grissom, come on. I can see them any time I like. All I have to do is call them. We're not five year olds." She smirked down at her coffee, recalling the conversation Greg had so eagerly recounted to her that morning on the phone. It seemed the team wanted very much for Grissom to persuade Sara to switch back. She got the impression he had yet to hear the end of it.
"Are you sleeping better?"
She looked up at him, eyes clear and centred, a gaze that was half laughing, half loving, and thought how utterly gorgeous and frustrating their little flirtation had been. She wondered if she could communicate through this look alone that that day had gone. She was all about a new game now.
"Better," she said, hooded lids sliding in his direction. He nodded, resigned to the fact that something was afoot and he was utterly inept at dealing with it.
"But I think only time will expose the full advantages of the situation…" He looked at her sharply, eyes flicking back and forth over her face, trying desperately to read her.
"Now if you don't mind…" she gestured towards her work.
He withdrew, sheepish and mumbling, and she watched his back disappear round a corner. Run along, she thought, you've got some waking up to do.
Friday
Excellent, she thought.
Two days on a new shift and a Friday night off. She had seriously underestimated the benefits of moving to Swing.
The very idea of being in a bar – and a normal bar, not a seedy, strip lit round the clock joint - by eleven on a Friday felt delicious, something she hadn't really been able to do since college.
Greg had Friday night off, and Nick was on call. They found their way to Misty's around the corner from the lab and took up residence in an overstuffed booth that made Sara feel like she was on her own couch. The beer was cold. The boys were on great form. It was like down time with the two brothers she'd never had.
Her hair was up. Her jacket was kind of new. She felt different. She felt like a member of society. She felt like the kind of woman men date. She laughed, she really laughed, and she let go, just enough, to have a damn good time.
Nick got a page, and pulled out his cell to call in. Greg went to the bar for the third round. Nick nodded and spoke quickly into the phone before hanging up.
"I gotta go. Before you have another, can you give me a ride?"
Greg looked confused as he turned back from the bar to see Sara and Nick leaving. She called back to him that she wouldn't be long, and then she motioned to a young blonde on the other side of the bar. He rolled his eyes, as if.
"He has no idea how cute he is," Sara told Nick as they got into her car.
"Don't tell me you have a crush on the baby?"
"God, no." She was probably a little emphatic, she realised soon afterwards. Nick was smiling.
"Got it."
"Got what?"
"Your affections lie elsewhere," he said, tapping his nose conspiratorially.
"No again. I'm done with all that."
They swung into the lab parking lot. Grissom's SUV was idling outside the lab doors, the back open, his kit on the tarmac beside it. As Sara pulled up, Grissom emerged. He stared, just for a moment. Nick's eyes slid between the two of them.
"Done with all that. Right. Gotcha." He shrugged his jacket on.
"Seriously."
"Shame," Nick said, jumping out of the car. He leant down, his voice low, smile wide, " because I think you might be getting somewhere."
Saturday
The coffee just appeared. Milk, sweetener, just the way she liked it. She came back from the bathroom and there it was. Six o clock on a Saturday and only a skeleton staff remained. Sara happily worked away in the tiny office, definitely not thinking of the look on Grissom's face the night before. Or Nick's words. Or the coffee, although inside something close to a thrill inched its way along her spine.
On her way past Grissom's office, she noticed his light was on. He was working too. She reasoned that he was pulling a double, or even a triple, based on the time she had seen him the night before. She didn't look, or pause.
The evidence locker was cold. She couldn't find what she needed. It made her skin ache a little, being in the dim cool ice box. Box upon box bore down on her as she stalked the short aisles, hands flitting from one to another.
"I feel as though I haven't seen you for a while." His voice was low, and she let it wash over her shoulders for a moment. She turned as the door clicked shut behind him.
"You saw me last night."
"Right." He paused, searching for words. She kept her eyes on the box labels in front of her, scanning the rows as he floundered for something to say.
"I guess I've been caught up with work." It sounded like an apology, and she didn't want one of those.
"Is this your second or third shift in a row, Grissom?"
"Third."
Sara gave up on what she was looking for and turned for the door. She placed one concerned hand on his shoulder as she passed, feeling the charge in spite of the cool air.
"You should go home. Get some rest. You look like you haven't been sleeping."
"I haven't."
"Oh? Why's that?" His face was pained. She wished she could reach inside him and pull the truth from his tortured, sinewy head. But she wasn't doing that anymore. She was done running after him.
He struggled to form any words at all.
"Why? Because.." He slid his palm over his tanned face and she felt a surge within her. Last chance, she thought, taking hold of the doorknob. Say something, or say nothing. Your call Grissom. Always your call.
"I don't know why." He exhaled, shoulders falling a little. She sighed, deflated.
"Of course you don't."
She knew he was watching her walk away, but she did not enjoy it.
Sunday
She let the phone ring out the first time. She wasn't interested. Work would call her cell or page her. The second time, she wondered why she had never bothered to replace her broken machine.
"Yes?"
"I do know why."
"Excuse me?" Her skin was on fire. This was new. Grissom, calling her at home, to explain some random, infuriating thing he had said. Or not said. Definitely new.
"Why I haven't been sleeping."
"Okay…" Nonchalant, she told herself, be nonchalant.
He let out a sigh before he began. "Because I think about you most at night. Because I think about you a lot more since you moved shifts. Because I used our daily proximity as an excuse never to do anything about it. And now I don't have that proximity."
Sara let a long moment go by.
"So now what's your excuse?"
Another long moment. Sara shook her head to herself. It ached. She wanted to sleep.
"I thought so."
She placed the phone in the cradle gently. She found herself neither mad nor upset. More empty, reassured that he felt what she felt, devastated that he could no more act on it with all obstacles obliterated than he could have if there had been none in the first place. It was a quiet, familiar devastation that she had lived with thus far. It was his loss, she kept telling herself, drumming that into her own head as she went for a run, took a shower, made a cup of hot tea. Every movement screamed back at her that it was actually her loss. It always had been. And it was hard, hard to bear.
It wasn't a good night's sleep. She had tossed back and forth for two hours when she heard a car in the lot outside. Then footsteps. A knock.
She put on jeans before answering it. She ran a hand through her hair. She padded slowly to the door, mentally reminding herself where her weapon was if this didn't turn out to be next door, or Greg. It was never anyone else.
Grissom was mad. He didn't wait for her to invite him in. He didn't say sorry for waking her, although he hadn't. He didn't know that. There was no awkward silence. He had something to say.
"You want me to come over here and say it again?" He was breathing hard and he smelt incredible.
"Say what?"
" That I have feelings for you, Sara. You know that. Does that change things? Does that help you? Does that make it easier? Is that what you want?"
She felt her temperature rising as she opened her mouth to protest.
"Is this what I want? Let's see. A world where you and I can't communicate? No, I don't want that. To face the fact that no matter what I do you just can't take a chance on me? Yep, that feels great. A world in which you don't shy away from the very idea of you and me, yeah, that's something I want."
Grissom's voice rose as he replied. "What world is this? Not our world. In our world we're committed to our jobs and we're good at them, we're relied upon for our integrity and our professionalism."
"And?"
"We can't be those people and have this."
Sara's skin burned as she pushed past him into the dark kitchen. The fridge light cut through the gloom as she retrieved a bottle of water and ripped the cap off.
"Grissom, if you stuck to your shifts and I stuck to mine, we'd barely ever be in the building at the same time. Don't act like you don't know that. You're prolonging the problem. You don't want the solution. You don't even know what 'this' is, because you never let anyone get close."
They stood in the semi darkness, cool fridge air and blue light settling around them. The ghost of what they never were hung limply between them.
"How bad could it be?" She was almost whispering.
"It wouldn't be bad at all, Sara. I know that. But it would leave us in a complete checkmate. That's what I'm afraid of. Aren't you?"
Sara folded her arms across her chest. "I think things are as complicated as you make them."
"It's not me I'm worried for," he added, quietly.
"What?" Sara retorted, almost indignant. Grissom took a few steps towards her.
"I can handle Ecklie. He can't do much to me. But you.." She brushed this away.
"Don't you ever just crave a little human contact?"
"I try not to focus on those things." His voice was so soft, caring, like a blanket around her shoulders. Half of her wanted to cry into it and the other half kick it away in disgust.
"Well I envy that, really. I do. But I can't be like that," she said, shaking her head, emotion weighing heavy on her.
"I know. It's one of the things I love about you," he said, brow furrowed as he struggled to remain composed.
Tears sprung to Sara's eyes, such was the power of the man. She wanted him, and she couldn't have him, and all she could think in that moment was how to turn that around.
"Tell me what to do, and I'll do it. I'll change my job, I'll.." He was shaking his head.
"You've done enough." She nodded bitterly, placed her water on the counter and pushed away from it.
"I've had enough." Sara's words felt small on her tongue but were loud in the apartment. He caught her arm as she tried to pass him, and she froze. He held on. Their eyes found each other, and he could see her anger smouldering there. She looked for contempt, for contention, for flight. Found fear. Something else. Passion. Darkness. His chest rose and fell with the effort of breathing normally.
"I can't take any more of this," she warned, her chocolate eyes full. "I need to know, here and now." He exhaled quickly, his eyes sad but set firm.
"Sara.."
"I mean it," she said, carefully. "Either this is never going to happen, which means you let go of me, walk out that door and promise me that there will be no more maybes or moments or any of that."
He looked so sad. "Or..?"
"Or you kiss me now and don't think about it. Deal with it later."
His eyes were deep as he levelled up to her, looking her in the eye. She could see the thoughts in motion as he weighed up how to tell her he wanted somewhere in the middle. Her heart raced, terrified that her little ultimatum would leave her crushed.
He loosed her wrist, and a tear spilled onto her cheek.
He turned. Took two steps. Three. Four. A second tear chased the first down Sara's fallen face.
As he opened the door she turned away, leaning on the counter for support as she suppressed a sob.
No sound, no movement, just the impending click of the lock as he left her life. It hit her like a bullet, the sound too loud and final. She let out a long sigh, counted silently to ten.
Turned, to find him there.
He pushed her back against the counter, fast, his arms snaking around her to cushion the impact. She made contact with the solid wood and he rushed into her world, eyes, hair, hands so close, so unlike ever before. He touched his lips to hers in the sweetest, most urgent of movements, and in that moment broke all their rules, all walls crashing inaudibly around their legs as his moved instinctively into the space between her thighs. It was terrifying, and thrilling, and utterly chaotic.
She found herself wondering how her simple, sad, scientific life could possibly have been holding in store for her such complete abandon and intoxication. She was trembling as he kissed her again and again. They were just on the careful side of frantic, small breaths and hot hands. Sara was blind, her legs weak, her voice stolen. All she could do was let him in, let him kiss her, discover her waist and arms and neck and hair. They kissed for what felt like hours, until the cold tiles began to numb her toes and the refrigerator light went out.
"I'm sorry," he said, quietly, pulling back," I can't do either of the things you asked."
She put some space between them, feeling her hard shell quickly reforming ready for whatever blow was about to come. But he pulled her back into his arms and melted her, warmed her, placed a kiss to the base of her neck and rendered her speechless, momentarily.
"Because now that I have kissed you, I'm going to be thinking about it for the rest of my life." Sara smiled, spellbound.
"I suppose that's secret option number three," he said.
Sara laughed, a teary, husky laugh that he felt rise through her. She watched him soak up the sound, watched him look at her lips, watched him fight with all his internal politicians and demons, watched him experience the desperate physical pull she had felt for so long.
Braver now, she kissed him again. He needed no persuading, and the tears fell easily as she felt the change in him. Relief, love, desire, coursing through her.
Years later, she would tell people it had started on a Sunday.
FIN.