a/n: Comes out of hiding Remember me? ...the writer's block fairy nearly killed me. I pulled a Sara.
Warning: Spoilers for For Gedda (which I have not yet seen, but know about...) I will likely be adding chapters after this if it goes well. Please comment! good to be back, although under stuch gruesome circumstances.
He opened the door
He opened the door.
She stared blankly at him.
Seven months.
Seven months, sixteen days, and 9 hours, he corrected.
He was fairly sure that if neither of them moved soon, rigor would begin to set. He tried to open his mouth, move his hand, step back, blink, something, but those seven months, sixteen days, and 9 hours were sitting right on top of them like the weight of the Bellagio. And adding to that, the most recent 31 felt like another couple of hefty slabs of concrete.
She crooked her head to the side. Her hair was longer. Her skin less pale. He imagined that she had looked less broken…until he'd called her. She'd been healing while she was gone. But the stitches she'd made had been ripped open. He wondered how well they would hold.
A tear slipped out of the inner corner of a cavernous brown eye.
Then, the Bellagio and fell to the ground in hundreds of pieces of emotional rubble.
She fell into his chest, pressing her face against his collar. Her thin arms wrapped around his midsection. He was still just standing there, looking down at her leaving wet spots on his shirt. Then, finally, his nervous system kicked back into gear. His arms moved around her shoulders, and his head leaned against hers. They fit perfectly back into the long-ago familiar embrace.
It was then, and only then, that Grissom's heart broke.
Suddenly, there was a cataclysmic fury of every dark emotion ripping between them both. He choked out her name and he felt her fists ball up, his shirt tangled in her hands. The hotness of her tears on his shoulder burned like acid but he would not pull away. Anyway, he didn't mind the pain. At least he was feeling something.
When she had left, he had been numb. All his life, he'd been on mental morphine. His mind anaesthetized to any sort of pain or sadness that the world could have hit him with. But now…he definitely had nothing to numb the raw and jagged emotions scraping at his heart.
He kicked shut the door.
He felt the initial anger and tension leaving her body as her heaving chest slowed. She slowly – reluctantly, even – pulled her face away from his body.
Sara's eyes were red around the outside and her forehead creased with the sadness they both felt. But she was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Damaged, yes. But fantastically breath-taking.
He was shattered. Her chocolate eyes were almost black.
"Sara…" he started quietly. He felt her sway ever so slightly at the sound of his voice. "I…I can't…where to start…"
He didn't recognize his own voice. It was all so strange to him.
Then, she did something even more strange.
She kissed him.
It took a split second before he realized her lips were pressed against his. Then, he responded. It was deep and passionate. Mouths pressing hard against each other, telling volumes of feelings and secrets and needs. It built up, the pressure and the weight of vast emotion, until Grissom felt a groan explode from his chest. She pulled away at the sound. She had never seen that look upon his face.
"Sara, why?" he asked.
The spoke for the first time. "Why what?"
"Everything! Why did you almost die? Why did you really leave? Why didn't I fire him? Why did is he gone? And why is everything falling apart? For fuck's sake, why?!"
He didn't not realize he had raised his voice until he stopped speaking. The silence, though, that followed immediately after was much louder than he could have ever yelled. Sara did not speak for a long time, but stared out the window of their apartment.
Grissom, still trying to decipher this bizarre outburst, angrily ran his hand through his hair.
"I'm sorry," he offered, "I just--"
"Don't." She interrupted softly , "Don't. Just…shhh."
She put a finger to his lips and grabbed his arm with her other hand. Silently, she led him to their bedroom. She hadn't been in it for over half a year, yet she noticed her bookmark was still in the same spot on her beside table. Grissom felt her gently push him towards the bed. He sat. He watched her close the blinds, kick off her shoes, and lay down on the bed. She moved with the forced grace of a princess in exile.
"Lay with me," she said. He let her words settle on him for a few moments before he followed her commands. The pain bit into his insides like thousands of little hooks.
He lay beside his fiancée, stiff and uncomfortable. Her hand gently stroked his arm as he stared at the ceiling. She rolled onto her side and put her hand over his heart. His instinctively went to cover hers.
"Let go." She said. Her voice was softer than cashmere. He looked at her confusedly.
"Just…let it out."
He felt something roiling deep within him. Somewhere in that bottomless pit inside him, something was ready to snap, coiled and pulsing.
"Please?"
Then, all of a sudden, it hurtled out of him. Grissom had somehow rolled onto his side and pulled her against him, spooning her tightly. Hot, angry tears pressed against Sara's neck as sobs wracked his chest.
He had not cried in 43 years.
And it hurt bad.
She let him hold her until he had nothing left in him. She was broken in his arms, but she felt held together even as he lost all vestiges of control.
When the last shuddering sigh passed though him, he kissed her shoulder.
"Thank you," he whispered. She didn't reply. It was then, he realized, that she was asleep.
It took him a while before he spoke again, just lying there and holding her, and for once, truly feeling. And when he did speak, he said something he'd never said before.
"I love you."