Disclaimer: If I say Please may I borrow them? Sharing is polite after all…
Author Notes: I heard the good news this morning on JFO… Sara is back indefinitely!!!! And I heard that this evening we find out Sara was missing last episode as she was off with Grissom!! Yay!! So this came tumbling out!!
Missing You.
By Rianne.
He was waiting there.
Small secretive smile on his face.
Expectant and damn if he didn't look positively giddy.
And she felt it too.
There in her belly. The sweet thrill of warm pleasure licking her insides.
It had been four weeks.
Twenty-eight days.
Six hundred and seventy-two hours.
And she had not realised how much she had missed him until he was right there before her.
Her fingers tightened around the straps of her carry on bag.
She had to bite back the urge to rush desperately for him.
He hadn't seen her yet.
His eyes darted over the spilling crowd of people and baggage, searching for her amongst those who were meandering around the arrivals lounge, searching too.
Hundreds of travellers returning from afar, apprehensively searching the crowd, as the plane set them free, brought them back to the ones they loved. All waiting for that perfect moment of recognition, before they could find themselves tumbling longingly into waiting arms and cuddles and love.
And this same sea of emotions surrounded her, and for once it didn't embarrass her, or make her want to roll her sarcastic eyes, instead it coaxed her into its lull.
The difference was that she had someone to wait for her now.
And she found herself tempted into a synchronised symphony, a sharing of experience.
Her ears filled with the tangled greetings of love and delight in two languages that she now understood without thinking, without struggling or reaching for the right word for the right meaning, two languages showing her the way to honesty.
Two languages attempting to teach her how to profess the love she felt.
A love so private to her and felt so intensely and powerfully that she doubted she would be able to express it fully even if she knew a thousand languages.
But she wanted too.
That waiting man had changed her life.
The crowd gave her a few moments cover.
Provided her with a chance to drink him in.
Surprised at her hunger for the very sight of him.
She should be over there.
Precious time was being wasted.
They only had a few short days to be reunited, but with this break in his teaching schedule it would be the longest consecutive time they had spent together for a good long while.
And she was excited.
Had been daydreaming all flight about taking him to see some of the landmarks of Paris she had wanted to share with him. Daydreaming about his lips on her skin, his heart beating against hers, their bodies tangled and weak with release again. Daydreaming of hearing his voice, undistorted by phone lines or skype, whispering intimacies into her ear again.
The whole flight.
Unable to sleep.
Unable to rest.
Quietly pining.
Longing deep.
Yet now she was here still she took her time.
The vulnerable heart still wary.
Still a little worried he had not been as calm about her announcement that she was returning to CSI as he had professed to be. Her leaving him here in Paris had not been a happy occasion. He had been reluctant despite his attempts to be understanding.
He had thought she was happy in Paris with him, and she was.
She really was.
But she was bored too.
And restless.
And with Ecklie's call it had suddenly seemed like the right time to face off with some of her final demons.
He understood her process. Or at least he tried his hardest too.
Understood how much she had put up with for him.
And he understood that there were ghosts back there in Las Vegas that she needed to face as well.
People they both cared about more than they had ever professed in words who needed help.
She had returned for them.
And to prove to herself that she was a damn good CSI without always looking over her shoulder to see if he was noticing.
But she had missed him.
More even than when they had been apart before.
Even more than when she had tumbled over the vastness of the ocean onboard the Sea Shepherd, or first found herself intrigued by the wilds of Costa Rica.
Back then she had still clung to the vestiges of her stubborn anger and hurt at his refusal to go with her. She had concentrated as hard as she could on that, all whilst knowing that he was struggling under the weight of the Vegas skyline and the death of a beloved friend, too stubborn to admit that the job he had once loved was now destroying him.
Yet she hadn't been able to force him, or even push him.
She loved him too much.
So she had suggested, offered, tempted and eventually…
He had come.
When he had been ready.
Had appeared like a heart stopping vision from the foliage with open arms.
So things were different now.
So very different.
Better than she could have hoped.
And it had taken these few weeks apart to see how pronounced the effects of changing their lives had been upon him.
Differences in him that she had previously been too close to see before.
He was so different from the tired sad man who had stumbled blindly into her arms in the jungle. The man who had been desperate for forgiveness and tenderness and her.
The change was staggering.
He looked happy.
Lighter.
Yes his hair had a touch more grey, but the lines around his eyes creased with laughter not pain.
And still he looked every inch her slightly scattered professor.
With his fingers flexing at his sides as he waited.
He was still the man with as many complexities as straight forwards that had infuriated her and made her fall in love.
And he loved her too.
But the long transatlantic flight had made her more anxious than she had expected.
Had given her too much time to loose herself in her thoughts.
And grow weary of her worries.
For despite their matching golden bands, and the words that had passed between them in front of witnesses and officials, and even the gorgeous never to be shared with anyone else, intimate affections which had poured unrestrained from their lips as they had first made love as man and wife, there was still hesitation in her.
History between them had told that every reunion was fraught for them.
Pleasurable, filled with relief, yet awkward and uncertain too.
A struggle between the desire to cling to one another and the sudden frantic paralysing fear and vulnerability that swept both of them. Clutching them just as tightly as they wanted to hold one another.
Fears that made them painfully aware of absence.
Of time past.
Brought previous fears that they had thought they had forced their way through and forgiven and forgotten back to the surface.
She was nervous.
And being surrounded by others made this different. Even if they were complete strangers. Even if they clearly were all swept up in their own emotional reunions.
Had they been alone she would have felt braver.
Would have been more confident in giving into her urge and might have thrown her arms tightly around him without thought.
Might have kissed him until neither of them could breathe.
Yet before she could make any decisions…
His eyes lifted.
Then across the vastness of the crowded lounge it was happening.
Her perfect moment.
His gaze met hers and she couldn't look away.
She literally couldn't breathe.
Her heart was calling to his, thumping up against her ribs.
There was a flood of hormones and emotion and a million sensations she didn't know what to do with pouring through her and mixing her up inside.
Her vision blurred and she couldn't believe she was almost crying.
There wasn't anything she could do except blink and feel her smile break.
And his smile grew.
Then the distance between them was gone.
And there was no hesitation at all.
There was warmth.
Love.
Tenderness.
His arms tightening around her.
She could feel the press of each individual finger through her shirt pulling her closer.
Her body pressed tight to his.
Her small gasp as he made contact sounded so loud.
Said so much more about her relief, and her pleasure than any words could.
Her own arms instinctively curling back around the solid strength of him.
Her whole body feeling like it glowed.
She found herself murmuring his name into his neck as his nose traced her hairline as if memorizing her scent and his own warm sigh breezed over her sensitive skin spreading sweet shivers.
And time stopped.
Sound around her stopped.
And there was nothing but them and his smell and his comfort.
It didn't matter where they were, but that they were together.
For now.