Disclaimer: Characters contained within do not belong to me.
Author's Notes: Not really sure if this counts as a post-ep, but the episode did get me thinking, which got me writing. I hope you enjoy it!
No Place Like It
by Kristen Elizabeth
November 2000
The apartment is too small, but Sara tells herself that it's only temporary. So what if it's in a not-so-great area of town? What does it matter if the carpets smell like old cooking and the radiator rattles? She doesn't anticipate staying in Vegas for very long.
After all, hasn't it been proven to her over and over again that good things never last?
One day, most likely sooner rather than later, Grissom is going to tell her that he's hired someone else, someone permanent to take Holly Gribbs's place. He'll thank her for coming on such short notice and she'll thank him for the opportunity while doing everything in her power not to grab him and kiss him until they both pass out from lack of oxygen.
Although that would be a great death.
So, really, what would be the point in shopping for furniture or choosing arty prints for the walls? The odds of her ever getting to call Las Vegas home are depressingly slim.
Her phone rings. It can only be one person and he must be in a bind if he's calling her instead of just paging her to the lab. "Sidle," she answers.
"Sara." Grissom pauses, clears his throat, and Sara sits up straighter. "Thanksgiving is next week."
There is another, longer pause. "Yes," Sara finally says. "Thanks for the heads-up."
He sighs, as if she's said the wrong thing. "You probably have plans."
She doesn't, at least nothing beyond microwaved tofurkey and the Macy's parade. Damn that decomposing pig! She used to love meat.
"Sure," she tells him, unsure of why she's lying even before she gets the whole word out. "Big plans."
She can almost see him nodding in relief, as if she's now spared him a very awkward invitation that he really wasn't prepared to make. "All right. Well, then. I'll see you tomorrow, Sara."
"Yeah." Sara smiles in spite of herself. She has at least one more day with Grissom. "Tomorrow."
Maybe she should start looking at a few nicer apartments.
March 2003
Maybe she should move. Again.
She never should have let Hank in here. She certainly never should have let him spend the night. Now all she can think about when she comes home is all the pathetic ways she tried to carve a space for Hank in her life.
Sara shrugs out of her black coat and drapes it over the back of the chair she'd bought six months ago, not because she needed one, but because she wanted her apartment to at least look like it was more than just a place where she crashed for a few hours in between shifts.
Hank had liked the chair and the matching couch. She wonders if she should get rid of them, along with any other reminders of their failed relationship. But how far should she go with that line of thinking? He'd walked on the carpet and drank out of half the glasses she owned. He'd run his fingers over the spines of her books and hogged the remote control. He'd slept in her bed, between her sheets...hell, she could process every inch of every room and never find all the trace he'd left behind.
Moving wasn't going to erase the memory of Hank. Sara turns in slow circles, taking in the cream-colored walls and the venetian blinds. Redecorating, however—that could do wonders for a bruised heart.
February 2005
Sara watches Grissom move around her kitchen. He's decided that she needs a cup of tea in the wake of her emotional overflow, but Sara suspects he needs a moment alone more than anything. She can't blame him. She'd unloaded a lot of her history onto him. True, he did ask for it, but maybe she could have held back just a little bit.
He doesn't know where anything is, but he doesn't ask her for help. Instead, he searches through cabinets and drawers until he finds the things he needs. Men never ask for directions.
When he finally returns, he's carrying a steaming mug and a package of cookies that she knows are stale.
"Thank you." Her hands hug the cup of tea, needing its warmth. "Grissom, I just want to say...I mean, I just want you to know how much I've...appreciated working with you the past few years. I know I wasn't always the easiest employee, but I hope I never let you down too badly." She tries to smile. "You know. Before today, at least."
"Sara." Grissom hesitates like he wants to say something huge, but can't make himself. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking. Still, his shoulders sag just enough to make her lower her eyes and wonder, for the six millionth time, just what was really going through his mind.
When he asks, "Why purple?," she immediately looks back up at him. He's indicating the lilac-colored walls.
Sara blinks. "Um...why not?"
Grissom nods slowly, as if this makes perfect sense. "I'm not firing you, by the way."
She can breathe again. "Good. I just got this place how I like it." Their eyes meet. "I really don't want to move."
He reaches for a cookie. "Yeah," he agrees, still staring at her. "I can see that."
December 2006
It started as just a razor and a toothbrush in one corner of the bathroom counter, but now he has two drawers and part of the closet. He keeps bran cereal in the kitchen and one-third of the couch is covered with paperwork he's brought from the lab. He wants to decorate for Christmas and he wonders if she'd mind paying the extra pet fee so Hank could stay over, too.
Grissom is living half of his life in Sara's apartment and it's starting to drive her crazy.
Of course, she realizes she's probably doing the same to him. She saw the look on his face when she stored a jumbo box of tampons in his bathroom. He might have an advanced degree in biology, but when it came to menstruation, he was still such a guy.
And she loves him. God, does she love him, even though he leaves little hairs in her sink when he trims his beard. What the hell is up with that? Has it never occurred to him to simply turn on the faucet and rinse them away? She manages to clean his tub after she shaves her legs, doesn't she?
Grissom is next to her on the couch, his sock-covered feet propped up on her coffee table. He's reading Stephen King's latest. She's pretending to flip through a physics journal.
She wants to tell him that she never decorates for Christmas because it's never been worth the time or effort. She wants to tell him that dragging Hank back and forth between their places will just confuse him and possibly bother him enough that he starts chewing shoes again. She wants to tell him to either wipe his beard hair out of her sink or trim it at his own damn sink!
But then he turns a page and says, completely out of the blue, "I've been thinking that we should get a bigger place. Together."
And all Sara can think to say is, "Can we have two sinks?"
Grissom glances at her with a half-smile. "Why not?"
July 2007
The whole time she was in the hospital, all she wanted was to go home. Now, all Sara wants is to get the hell out of the house before she goes insane.
But where would she go? She can't drive with her cast. It's 113 degrees outside. She's trapped.
Hank is watching her every restless movement around the townhouse, like he has since the day she returned. When she moves into a different room, he follows her.
"Gil's trained you well," Sara tells the dog. "Too well."
Hank simply rests his chin on the floor between his paws, his droopy eyes never leaving her.
Her arm aches, but she refuses to take anything for it. She still remembers the woozy, nauseating feeling of being drugged in Natalie's car. She has a vested interest in being awake and aware, especially when she's alone in the house.
Because what if Natalie escaped and decided she needed to finish her model? Sure, Sara likes to tell herself that she'd be ready for her, but all of her training hadn't kept her safe the first time, and she hadn't been injured then.
She hears a noise at the door and hates how she jumps, despises how she instantly searches for a weapon. It's just Gil; she ought to know the sound of his key turning the lock.
He's home. Everything will be okay.
If she tells herself this enough, maybe she'll start to believe it.
January 2009
It's just a tent in the middle of the jungle, little more than canvas walls supported by wooden stakes. She's lived in it for over a month, but never called it home.
Until tonight.
Grissom is meticulously arranging the mosquito netting so that every inch of the two cots they've pushed together is protected. But every few seconds, he looks at her and the entomologist disappears, replaced by a man who is absolutely ravenous for her.
A chill runs down her spine, despite the cloying heat. Her nipples are hard with anticipation. She wants to tell him to forget the netting; he's worth risking malaria.
But then he's done and suddenly his body is covering hers. His lips, his tongue, his hands, his chest, his cock...Sara wants all of him touching her. She doesn't care who hears them or what they might think. She wants to get lost in Gil.
When it's over and they're lying side by side, letting their sweaty bodies cool down, Sara can't decide whether she wants to laugh or cry. She ends up doing both.
"Hey." Grissom turns onto his side and brushes a tear off her cheek. "What's this?"
She shakes her head against the pillow. "I don't know." Staring at the netting above them, she whispers, "I can't believe you left the lab...for me."
"Maybe I should have done it a long time ago."
Sara glances at him. "Maybe we weren't ready for that."
"Are we now?" he asks, fingering a lock of her hair.
She answers by pulling him down for another kiss.
September 2009
They live around the corner from a bakery on the Rue de Valmont and Sara wonders if it's possible to gain weight just by inhaling. She's always been thin, save for the occasional belly flab that resulted from too much diner food and no time to exercise, but by French standards, she's edging towards chubby.
Grissom either doesn't notice or doesn't care because he keeps bringing home baguettes and fresh butter, not to mention eclaires and petit fours. It's almost like he's trying to fatten her up.
Probably because he wants to get her pregnant.
It's not that she's adverse to the idea of having a baby with him, far from it, but they've only been married for a few months. They have a one bedroom apartment in a foreign city and neither of them are pulling in a paycheck that's anywhere near what they would need to be making in order to provide for a child in the way that she wants to.
"It's not the right time," she tells him. "But when it is, you are going to be an amazing father."
Still, for all of her pragmatism, she can't help but notice that while the apartment is small, there's certainly enough room for a bassinet. Maybe even a changing table. A rocking chair might even fit in the far corner.
She's almost decided to throw away her birth control pills when she gets a phone call from Ecklie.
"Go," Grissom tells her when they discuss the phone call later that night. "They need you."
Sara fights back tears. "What about you and Hank?"
"We'll be here." He reaches down to scratch the dog's ears, but Sara knows he's really just struggling to keep his composure. "Waiting for you."
October 2010
The townhouse is too big for just one person. Sara keeps inviting Nick and Greg over for dinner or breakfast or just to hang out and watch a movie. It helps, at least until they leave. And then the silence swallows her up again and she finds herself reaching for her phone to call her husband.
And Grissom always answers, no matter what time it is in Paris.
He's been asked to lecture full time at the Sorbonne, which means more money, which means a bigger apartment. Sara falls asleep every night with one hand against her flat belly. Soon, she tells her empty womb. Soon.
But she wants to have their baby in Vegas. It just wouldn't be right to have it anywhere else. Vegas, she realizes now, is and always will be their home.
It's after midnight when he calls. They chat about everything and nothing until they've run out of things to say and they reach a comfortable pause.
"So." He clears his throat. "Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away."
Her lips curl into a grin. "Yeah. Heads-up."
"Do you have plans?"
"Big ones." Sara leaves him hanging just long enough before continuing, "Check your email for your flight info."
He's smiling now. She can feel it from six thousand miles away. "I can't wait, Sara."
Suddenly, the house doesn't seem so empty anymore. "Me neither."
Fin