Disclaimer- Do I really have to say it?
A/N-I know this story feels a bit rushed, but I really wanted to get the idea down and I felt constrained by the word count. If anyone wants me to continue and make it seem less rushed, leave a review! Un-beta'd so any mistakes are mine. This is for my friend Kaleigh, whose larger version got put in the story. Thanks for the idea Kaleigh. )
A Lot Of Fun
Sara loved swimming. It was her way to relax at the end of a day, to feel the water glide past her face, like air, only you could actually feel it. Pushing your hair back and clashing on your skin. It was in the water that she let herself think, where she wished that their visits to the hospital would stop. Even though it was all she knew, it brought her mother pain, pain she did not deserve.
Looking back, she guessed that was why she stopped swimming. It all brought back memories. Memories of what had happened, the smell of blood, one she knew well enough now, but she never wished it upon a child, no child at all should smell so much blood. Her mother stabbed her father, and she was left huddling in a corner. That was when she stopped enjoying the water, the feel on her skin, it reminded her of blood, pints of it.
So how she had landed up here, on a 60 foot yacht, Barbados and Carlisle Bay behind her, left in a swirl of rushing water, really made her question her sanity.
Two weeks earlier, she was only running a little late into work. Which she knew was amazing, even for her, especially when she maxed out on overtime each month.
She flew into the break room, coffee cup and sunglasses in hand, muttering a quick apology to the rest of the team, who were now all seated in silence
It took her a few seconds to register that all the silence and eyes were directed at her.
'What?' she enquired as she pulled out an empty chair and sat don, 'Am I not allowed to be late for work-'
'You are going scuba diving off the coast of Barbados,' Grissom cut her off, and paused to take deep breath,' with me. We are leaving in two weeks time, order by Ecklie'
Her jaw dropped to the floor, she could only blubber like a fish, not being able to form a coherent answer. She eventually fixed her deathly stare on the three other male members of their team, Greg, Nick and Warrick, all sitting directly across from her. All three knew that she wanted an explanation, fast, and Grissom wouldn't be the one to give it. The other two slowly turned to look at Nick who was sitting in the middle.
He coughed to clear his throat, 'Well, um, I can't go because being a natural born Texan, it just wasn't in my upbringing. Warrick has Tina, ' Warrick nodded, agreeing,' Catherine has Lindsey,' Catherine shrugged apologetically, 'and Greg is, well, Greg.'
Greg just grinned at her and took a sip from his chicken soup in a cup.
Sara wondered when and why Greg had started eating chicken soup, but she was not going to let this scuba diving thing sit, 'Grissom, why are you and I going and not Nick or Greg?'
All listeners turned their heads to Grissom, expecting an answer.
He coughed, and removed his glasses, 'As night-shift supervisor, I am obliged to go. You seemed like the perfect candidate to go with me. Ecklie organized the trip so as to better equip us to salvage any evidence from the bottom of Lake Mead.'
Sara leaned back in her chair, befuddled.
'Also, you were late,' Nick commented.
'I hit bad traffic,' she replied, with a bitterness in her voice.
Nick just smiled at the other's sitting at table, knowing there was no way she would get out of this one.
Grissom then started handed out assignments,'419 in the dessert, Sara, you're with me. The rest of you are investigating a murder-robbery at Excalibur.' Getting up, he smiled at all of them, 'Good luck.'
Everyone picked themselves up from their separate seats and headed out the door.
As Sara did, she put her sunglasses back on and wondered what bad karma had brought this round.
Two weeks , one day and three flights later, she was standing on the deck of a yacht, wondering whether Grissom had stopped staring at her. Turning around from her view of the blue ocean, she faced him, only to find his eyes a little too low for her liking.
She coughed, and it brought his eyes to her face, from their perch on a green beach chair.
If she knew that wearing a bikini would finally get his attention on her, she would have done it years ago. If only she knew why they were here in the first place.
She moved away from the railing on the side of the yacht to sit next to Grissom in another not-so-comfortable yellow beach chair. Sara wondered why everything to do with the beach had to be so damn bright. Maybe she had just spent too many years processing in the dark, with Grissom and his team.
She turned to face him, removing her sunglasses, 'Why are we here?'
Grissom didn't turn to look at her, his face still reflecting the sunset in the distance, 'Ecklie.'
Sara expected more than that, 'We both know that Ecklie wouldn't send us on this willingly. And if we needed expertise on diving in Lake Mead,' the inquisitive edge to her voice went up, 'Why aren't we diving in Lake Mead?'
Grissom just shrugged.
'Gris, please, you know I don't like water, why are we-'
'You don't like water?' he finally turned to face her, clad in a Hawaiian print shirt and Khaki shorts.
Sara rolled her eyes and gave him a look that meant she expected him to know that about her.
Grissom just shrugged his shoulders again and turned back to face the sunset.
'But you grew up in San Francisco, how can you not like water?' Grissom asked, breaking the silence after a minute or so.
'It's a long story.'
Grissom knew better than to try probe into the enigma that was Sara Sidle.
'Who paid for us to come here?' Sara asked, after having shaken off the thoughts that Grissom's question had brought on.
Grissom breathed in deeply, getting ready to explain to her. This was even though he didn't feel the explanation was worth the air.
'Someone who donates to the Sheriff's campaign heard about the CSI's lack of ability to dive and since he knew lots of people in the treasure retrieving business off of Barbados, he insisted that two of Las Vegas' CSIs take a trip there to participate in a course,' he finished off by turning to her and giving her an all knowing look.
'Uhuh,' Sara replied with not much interest in her voice. Then her inquisitive streak got the better of her, 'Don't we have divers who do that for us?'
Grissom shrugged and Sara gave up on her search for the 'truth'.
Once the sun was slowly starting to disappear behind the horizon, leaving a faint pink glow over the ocean and themselves, Sara asked, 'Since when could you swim?'
'There is a lot you don't know about me.'
As Sara tried not to laugh at how cliché that sounded, she decided to enjoy this trip, whether or not it included water or swimming of any kind.
Her thoughts were brought to an abrupt halt by a call to dinner.
Flopping onto the bed, she sighed to herself. Yes, it was cramped and if she got sea sick she would die trying to sleep on this boat, but luckily enough she didn't get sea sick. Once in her life she was glad for her genes, some of them at least. Not that she slept much anyways, by normal standards. She could survive on three or four hours for a week or two. Sleeping during the day also meant you learnt to put up with noises of all kinds. The sea was just something she would file away as another annoying sound. As long as she wasn't submerged in this large body of water for now, she was fine.
She wondered why she hadn't said to Grissom that she couldn't go. It was her decision and even she didn't understand it, maybe her subconscious just convinced her she was too tired to fight her impending doom. Could you call it that? Maybe it wasn't., five days on a yacht with Gil Grissom outside of work was a very rare occurrence for her. Now that she thought about it, this really could work to her advantage.
He was even talking, laughing, celebrating like a normal human being. Dinner certainly showed that, they had even shared a private toast to the rear of the deck.
'To the next couple of days,' Grissom said, raising his glass to hers.
'To the next couple of days,' Sara replied, clinking her glass with his, creating an echo across the still ocean.
They both sipped from their glasses, now clad in warmer clothes to keep out the chilly ocean breeze.
Sara raised her glass again with a grin on her face, 'To hoping that neither our instructor or our captain gets drunk.'
As Grissom raised his glass, he added, 'To five days without any decamps.'
They shared a mutual grin, turning back to the ocean to sip from their glasses.
'Look, Sara,' Grissom said after putting his glass down so that he could take off his glasses to pinch his nose.
'Hmm?' Sara asked. Although she didn't want to know, every time he did that she knew that he was about to say something neither of them would like.
'I'm sorry if coming here, with me, makes you feel uncomfortable,' he paused and took a deep breath, finally turning to look at her.
Sara just carried on looking at him straight in the eye, knowing better than to interrupt him.
'But there is no one else I would rather be here with,' he smiled as he finished, turning back to the sea and sticking his hands in his pockets.
Sara froze. Had she really just heard those words coming out of his mouth? Apparently she had, because she tended not to believe she could hallucinate. She thought quietly to herself for a few seconds. Even if there was nothing but innocent flirting between the two of them, maybe they could rekindle their old kinship. She was willing to try atleast.
'Well,' Sara said after a minute or so of silence, ' I've done worse for you.'
With a smile on her face, she turned around and headed back to the group, leaving her wine glass behind.
She knew had left Grissom standing on his own and most probably confused but there were other people on the yacht. Only 8 others actually participating in the course that this trip was for. Of course there was also, on top of all of them, Kaleigh, their dive instructor. She was Sara's height with long black hair and as much tenacity to fill three people of the same size. Highly enthusiastic about diving and what sort of treasure people found down there, she also err-ed on the side of caution with safety measures that in a sport as dangerous as diving were necessary.
Sara left everyone a little while later and came back to her little cabin in the boat, which was literally just a bunk bed that she shared with Grissom. Hopefully she would be asleep before he came back from the gathering on the-
Before she got a chance to finish that thought, she had fallen asleep from the lull of the sea.
Sara pulled on a t-shirt and shorts over her bikini. She knew that they weren't going to be diving until later in the day, but she couldn't stand being in heavy clothes near water. And this was even when she didn't want to be in the water. First today were the basics of Scuba Diving. You had to understand Physics, the danger and risks of diving and other things to make sure you knew what was going on while you were down there. Physics was Sara's strong point of course, but a refresher course never hurt anyone. Pulling her hair up into a ponytail, she walked out of the miniscule bathroom on the lower deck of the yacht. No one was to be seen but when she came out into the bright morning sunlight Kaleigh intercepted her and bide her a very good morning.
'Thanks,' Sara replied, 'But my morning is usually when you are going to bed.'
Kaleigh winced at the thought as they both leaned on the railing on the port side of the ship.
'How do you survive working in the job you do and at night none-the-less?'
Sara laughed, 'It's not actually that hard once you get used to it. It's the getting used to it that gets you.'
Kaleigh laughed heartily and carried on in a more firm voice, 'Well, we have a long day ahead of us with training and we hope to have all of you in the water by noon. Just bewarned though, to actually do proper Scuba diving for treasure, you need more training than a five day course.'
Kaleigh pushed away from the bar and walked away and Sara said, ' Aye, Aye, Captain!' and put on her sunglasses.
Kaleigh just laughed.
The rest of the morning flew by with Kaleigh lecturing all of them ,and showing a few practical demonstrations of how a scuba tank works. Once they all had a grip on the basics, they were going to go for a practice dive, everyone had to stay within eyesight of eachother.
Sara was trepid about the whole thing. Inside she knew that she wasn't ready for this. Her insides bunched up as the true reality only reached her now. Miles and miles of just water, the type that flows over you like silk., the great expanse of water from her childhood memories. The one she had banished to those childhood memories.
As she pulled on her flippers, she looked over to where Grissom was suiting up in similar attire.
He turned his head to look at her and smiled at her. A smile that said that it was all going to be ok, at least in Grissom's little bubble. For now, as she looked down into the ocean depths, it was all she needed.
She slowly made her way right to the edge and as soon as Kaleigh gave her the ok, she splashed backwards. She felt the cool liquid encase her, as if in slow motion.
Just before she was fully submerged, she smiled into her mouthpiece and knew that this was the beginning of a lot of fun.
A/N- Do you see that lovely little button that is telling you to Submit a Review. Press it, a little birdie told me magic things happen...