Disclaimer: These CSI characters do not belong to me. Sue me and you would only lose money so take the high road and ignore me. I also do not own any literary work by e.e. cummings. All of his geniuses belong to him, in life as in death.
Pairing: Grissom/Sara.
Rating: T with mild language and non-graphic adult situation.
Spoilers: If it's on TV, it's game.
Summary: GSR. Grissom's journey of emotional discovery. Story based on e.e. cummings' poem "somewhere i have never travelled". Written for geekfiction Summer Reading Ficathon. Prompt: e.e. cummings.
A/N: Enjoy and comments are always welcome! Thanks for reading! Peace…:)
somewhere i have never travelled
poem by: e.e. cummings
story by: litbuff
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
"Hi."
"Hi." The young woman smiled knowingly at him and stood aside for him to enter her haven.
He was not a person who believed in one-night stands. It wasn't because of the lack of opportunities, or some moral self-imposition that held him back from these physical gratifications. No, it was more deeply ingrained than that. He was a person who did not care for the emotional complications that a night of pure pleasure entailed or the awkward morning after or a lifetime of what-ifs.
But she was different.
She had a face that launched a thousand ships, a body that could only belong to a mythical Nymph, and a voice of a seductive Siren. Everything about her screamed sweat permeated, tangled sheets and uninhibited sensuality. And he was definitely out of her league. So when she pierced into his soul with those dark searching eyes that night, he was enslaved into breaking his one cardinal rule concerning relationships.
He was just a mortal creature of the senses and she enticed him in ways that he had never felt before. For one night, she promised him the world and he was allowed a taste of heaven. The night was filled with drunken haste of hungered lips upon delectable lips and intertwining limbs and erogenous treasures, to be plundered zealously. Waves of passion crested upon one another as the night wore on. He felt like an enchanted man, praying never to be found on this earth again.
As the sun rose signaling a new day, he plunged headlong into purgatory as he boarded the plane that took him back to his desolate reality and away from her temptations. For three years he laid dormant in emotional slumber, until the day she came again to wake him from his despondent sleep.
"Will you stay?" His internal organs churned uncomfortably, waiting for her answer.
"Do you want me to stay?" A playful smile teased him into submission.
"Yes…" His breathless reply acknowledged the power she held over him.
"Why are you asking me to stay?" Her question splashed his face like frigid water as the ramification woke him from his stupor. She gazed at his face for a reaction. She received none. Her eyes lowered in disappointment. He could sense she wanted a definitive confirmation of the real reason why he had asked her to come to Vegas and now, pleading for her to stay. He couldn't give it to her.
His hand instinctively moved across the diner's white tablecloth, reaching out for hers on the other side. His action was deterred when she suddenly looked up and spoke in a guarded voice.
"People will talk."
He just nodded.
"Things are going to change now that you're my supervisor." It was more of a query than a statement of fact.
He nodded again, hand now retracted back to his side of the table, a point not lost on her.
She pursed her lips in concentration and with veiled eyes that conveyed to him her determination to forget that night three years ago, she continued in her most professional voice, "I'll stay. I have always wondered what it's like to work for a great criminalist like you. It will be a great learning experience."
Blood raced through his veins with deafening intensity, rendering him speechless and unsettled. It was like holding a beautiful angel enclosed in a snow globe, he could admire her, worship her, yet forever separated by the glass casing.
He got what he wanted; now, he just had to live with what he had wished for.
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose
"You're rushing this for Sara."
Mocked accusation laced Nick's voice earlier at Grissom's perceived favoritism toward Sara. And Grissom had denied the insinuation by inferring that his intentions were solely for the case. In reality, how could he not after witnessing her with the rape victim in the hospital?
The years he spent observing horrid human behaviors had turned him into a cynically hardened man. Watching her talking to Pamela Adler through the doorway had brought out an emotion buried so deep in him that it sent his choking reflex into overdrive as it fought its way up and out of his constricted chest. The raw emotion she readily displayed for the unfortunate victim had infused him with such tenderness he thought he had lost the capability to feel so long ago. Her soft soothing voice slowly melted away his securely walled up heart as he frantically tried to patch it back up in futile attempts.
Many times during the case he had attempted to shield her from the harsh reality of humanity but her relentlessness in finding justice and closure for the victim taught him what it was like to feel human again. Her tenacious capacity to care for others borderlined on fanaticism and it unhinged him on emotional levels that he couldn't quite understand. And he did not know if he had enough courage to open that Pandora's box of entombed emotions, which he had carefully guarded for so long.
"I wish I was like you, Grissom. I wish I didn't feel anything." Her departing words stabbed at his chest.
He looked away from her retreating figure to find his heart bleeding from the truth of her insight. He quickly got up from his chair and followed her out to the parking lot of the Las Vegas Crime Lab.
"Sara." He called after her.
She turned around to face him, teary eyes hiding behind reflective sunglasses.
"You're wrong, you know."
"How is that, Grissom?" Her arms crossed in front of her, challenging him to disprove her.
"You don't want to be like me." He replied quietly.
"It's ok to feel Griss." The pitch of her voice lowered, her words penetrating his emotional armor. "Love, hate, fear… whatever… without them, there is no hope left for us..."
He scanned her flushed face while conjuring up another time and place years ago when it was suffused with the exact amount of rouge color, "I don't want to feel us… then to find out later that there is no us… just emptiness… I just can't…"
"I am not afraid of emptiness." She smiled sadly at him, wise beyond her years. "Only when you accept its existence, then you'd have the will to live life to the fullest."
"I am not as brave as you are…"
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
Jealousy sprouted more ugly heads than Cerberus himself.
He paged her on her day off just to satisfy his perverse desire to make her respond to his beckon. When he told her to get a life, he didn't really mean by dating another man, a much younger, better looking man. It was all her fault. She asked him to feel and now, he was feeling every single strand of envy and resentment toward that guy she had been spending time with. The image of Sara in another man's arms whipped his consciousness like a cat o' nine tails. The injuries never nicked the skin, only his soul felt the brunt of the assault.
When she finally showed up two hours later, his psyche was barely alive from exsanguination. Retaliation boiled to the surface and scalded her for his suffering. He sent her away on a solo assignment as punishment, yet it was he that was being punished. Guilt began to gnaw at him the minute she spun around in hopeless abandonment and withdrew from him. He wanted to call after her but pride held him back. He felt like a cad but at least he was… feeling…
"… you tell me to get a life and then I get one, and then you expect me to be there at a moment's notice. It's ... um ... confusing."
Her words hung heavily in the air as he heaved a sigh while staring at the empty space in his doorway where she had occupied moments earlier. Their so-called relationship had always comprised of hit-and-runs. She would hit him with some unpleasant truth and he would run from the chance to rectify it.
Three days had passed before he finally worked up enough courage to go looking for her and apologize for his lost of control. When he found her at last, she and Greg were talking animatedly in the break room, with Greg's arms flying in different directions and Sara's head fell back in full laughter. He stopped short just outside the glass paneled wall and contemplated the scene before him. She looked so young and vibrant, something he surely was not. What was the point of being jealous of any man who could make her happy and alive when he clearly wasn't able to?
He took a step backward and turned to walk away when, out of the corner of his eye, he caught her glancing in his direction, getting up quickly and stalking out of the break room. He saw her lips formed his name but he didn't hear her. He couldn't. It was at that moment all decibels in the human auditory range jumbled into one low buzz then vortexed into nothingness. It happened again.
He hastened his pace and escaped into the men's room before Sara caught up with him. He strode toward the stall furthest away from the door and locked himself inside. Leaning against metal wall, he took a deep breath and waited. At first there was nothing, then slowly a muffled sound reappeared, finally the crisp dripping of water from the faucet in the sink.
He shook his head and smirked to himself. What could a man like him offer her? She deserved so much more.
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
"You know, you don't have to sleep in the same bed together to have sex or ... have romance."
He did it again. She hit him with an undeniable truth and he ran like hell.
For years they had been doing this tango thing around each other, no… the waltz when at ease, the cha-cha when they wanted a mental challenge and the tango when sexually frustrated. Actually, they did the entire repertoire and his emotions were worn from dancing. With his hearing fixed, with Sara still waiting patiently for him, and with his constant longing for her with every fiber of his being, he was really running out of excuses to push her away.
Lately she had been a ferocious battering ram that had been toppling his resolve one heartbeat at a time. After her heart wrenching confession about her family history, he just wanted to take her in his arms and never let go. But he didn't. He didn't want her to think he did it out of pity. And he definitely did not want her to think he was taking advantage of her vulnerability. If he was to take her in his arms again, it would be because they both wanted to, for a different reason.
Then came the mental hospital incident. For the first time since he met her, he tasted fear. Risen bile fouled his mouth when he saw desperation on her face. He could actually feel that piece of hardened clay pressed against her exquisite neck. Luckily they were able to get out of that episode physically unscathed. But then because of his damned rational mind, he once again did not comfort her as his emotions demanded.
And of course, Nick's kidnapping was the emotional turning point for both of them. Grissom finally realized his fear of not knowing her love far outweighed his fear of waking up one morning without her in his life. He had acknowledged the emptiness in his life and decided to risk his heart in exchange for the love of a lifetime. The only problem was he just didn't know where to start.
The Lester case provided the unexpected catalyst for a relationship that was long overdue. It was during a late summer night a week after they closed that case when he showed up at her door unannounced.
"Hey."
"Hey." Sara smiled knowingly at him and stood aside for him to enter her apartment.
He didn't enter right away but instead, leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb while gazing intently at her.
"You're ok?" Her smile disappeared to be replaced by a worried frown.
He just blinked at her inquiry and continued with his thoughts. "Many years ago, I met this young and beautiful woman at a seminar and later saw her again on a deserted beach that I could have sworn she walked straight out from the mist of legendary myths. She captured my soul for one night of bliss and had me craving her ever since." He paused a moment to let one hand came up to caress her face with a feathered touch. "I didn't know it then but she breathed life into me and since became my Achilles heel."
He let his hand trace her jawline, down the baby soft skin of her neck, stopping momentarily to feel the racing pulse against his fingers. He unconsciously counted the beating of her heart, unraveled at the knowledge that her feelings mirrored his own.
"When you said sex or romance, which one did you prefer?" He eyed her slyly, teasing at the same time.
"Both." She answered without missing a beat. "I am a greedy woman."
One corner of his mouth raised a bit higher than the other as his eyes narrowed into a myriad of desires. Grissom closed the gap between them with a fluttering kiss and entered her home with the intention of never leaving her ever again.
Grissom was ecstatic when Brass told him that they had found her in the desert.
He broke every vehicular violation in the book just to get to the scene, to her. He was at her side when they evacuated her to University Medical Center. There, he waited impatiently for eight hours while she was in surgery before they would let him see her.
When they finally allowed him in, he nearly broke down at the sight of her bruised body. As much as he wanted to scream his pain, he told himself that she would not have liked for him to lose control, not like that… surely not here in this cold hospital room.
He pulled up a chair and sat down beside her bed. His hand came up to stroke her mud encrusted arm. Why the hell hasn't someone given her a wipe down yet?
He tried to hide his anger as he whispered softly, "Don't worry honey, I'll take good care of you from now on."
He stood up abruptly, retrieved some paper towels from the sink and soaked them thoroughly. He brought them back and started to delicately clean her beat up arms. He carefully avoided the IV needle inserted into her right hand. Tears involuntarily meandered down his cheeks as he tenderly touched her fingers, her nails tattered from scratching the desert floor. He suddenly wished that he had a nail clipper with him. She was not a vain person but she did like her nails clean and nicely clipped.
He stared at her peacefully sleeping face while trying to gather his scattered thoughts. He wanted to tell her so many things yet he found himself unable to voice any of them. And so he just sat there and caressed her hand.
He didn't know how long he had been staring at her until a nurse came in and asked him if he needed more time. He nearly choked on his "Yes" but he knew it was time to say good night. He gave the love of his life a lingering kiss and told her "I love you" over and over again.
He then got up and walked out to join his colleagues who were waiting for him. The floodgates that dammed his tightly coiled emotions swung wide open when Catherine saw his face and strolled up to embrace him. He sobbed uncontrollably and inconsolably until someone requested the hospital staff to give him a sedative. Catherine drove him home that night and made sure he made it to bed safely.
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
"If you're here to tell me I need therapy then save it."
Catherine walked into the living room and eyed the scene before her. "Where is…"
"In the bedroom." Grissom answered automatically. He always knew where she was at any minute of the day. It was his intention not to let her be alone ever again.
"Gil, we need to talk."
He just stared blankly at her, empty of any emotion.
"It's been a year, Gil." Tears were gathering up in her eyes. "Don't you think it's time you let her rest in peace?"
His lower lip twisted in anger as his eyes narrowed in pain. "Please leave."
"Gil…" Desperation and sympathy saturated her voice.
"Just leave." He left Catherine staring at his back while he disappeared into the bedroom to find his beloved.
"Catherine said I should let you rest." His voice laded with sadness. "What do you think honey?"
He sighed to himself, knowing she couldn't give him an adequate answer. He picked her up and walked back to the living room to find it empty. Catherine had given up and left.
He exhaled a breath of relief and sat her down at the kitchen counter as he prepared to make her favorite vegetarian dish. As always, Bruno would have the honor of licking her plate clean after dinner.
After cleaning up, he took out that one love letter he wrote but failed to send her. He unfurled the yellowed parchment; folded edges had smeared and cracked the written words from the daily reading. It did not matter that a lot of the words had become illegible. He was not reading from the letter but from his heart. He memorized every syllable like he memorized every inch of her body. He pulled her into his embrace as he recited his love for her once again. He then fell asleep from exhaustion with her still in his arms and woke every half-hour from haunting memories. Those were his daily routines. He was forever cursed like Prometheus to feel never-ending pain, only to forget momentarily, then pain again.
When he woke up from his second half-hour of restless unsleep this night, he found himself staring at the framed picture on the coffee table of him and Sara, taken in Hawaii one year after their official "togetherness". He was wearing a blue with white print Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts while Sara had on a silk flowery sarong with a T-shirt that playfully read, "I got leid in Hawaii." He was embracing her from behind and she had turned her head slightly to face him when the camera captured that moment in time. They were so happy… She was so happy…
"Are you happy honey?" He asked her softly.
She didn't answer him.
He cursed inwardly, chasticing himself for always being too late. He thought of the years he wasted when he could have made her happy. He thought of the missed chances he took for granted when he could have told her his true feelings. Tears began to pool again, a constant companion since the night at the hospital. His eyelids shut abruptly, willing away the unwanted reminder of his weakness.
"I am so sorry sweetheart…" His voiced cracked as he held her tight to him. "I am such a selfish son of a bitch to keep you by my side… to torture you with my pain…"
He opened his eyes as his tears escaped, uncontrolled. He looked down at her and smiled sadly. "I am going to make you happy now. A bit late but forgive me my love…"
Grissom drove all night to reach the Pacific Ocean. Sara had always loved the ocean and he was taking her home. They traveled down coastal Highway One until they reached that patch of beach where eleven years earlier they had shared their first kiss. He pulled the car to a stop and they both got out.
He held her one last time as he told her how much he loved her and had missed her and there would be no one but her in this lifetime.
As the sun rose announcing a brand new day, he unsealed the ivory urn that he had carried with him everywhere he went for the past year and dipped his hand inside. As salty tears mingled with salty ocean breeze, he watched with blurred vision while letting a handful of her ashes be carried away by the cool Pacific current. Then another… then another… until there were no more left of her… nor of him.
He stared at the empty ocean stretching into the unfathomable horizon until his eyes got tired. He then sank down onto the soft sand and meticulously buried each and every one of his emotions, building a firm foundation for his will to move on without her.
FIN
A/N: The following paragraph was taken from wikipedia dot com concerning the poet's desire to have his name written in all lower cases:
E. E. Cummings' publishers and others have sometimes echoed the unconventional capitalization in his poetry by writing his name in lower case and without periods. Cummings himself used both the lowercase and capitalized versions, but according to his widow did not, as reported in the preface of one book, have his name legally changed to "e. e. cummings". He did, however, write to his French translator that he preferred the capitalized version ("may it not be tricksy"). Today, one Cummings scholar considers that for the poet to have signed his name all-lowercase may have been a gesture of humility, but for others to do so would be an act of condescension.
For the sake of popular belief and the mystical romanticism of it all, I had used the lower case version of his name for this piece of writing.
A/N2: I don't like tragedy but this poem just drew it out of me. Sorry if I made you sad.