A/N: Yep, another Butterflied fic. Sorry. It was in my head and needed to get out. GS, of course.
Spoilers: Um…Butterflied
Disclaimer: Definitely not mine.
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"So what have we got?" Sara asked. Grissom lifted his head and turned to her. He had been the first on the scene before the start of shift and was just completing his initial assessment when Sara arrived.
"Woman comes home from the grocery store to find her boss's body on her doorstep, gift-wrapped in plastic."
Sara winced as Grissom gently pulled back the plastic with his gloved hand to reveal the victim's battered face. "Ouch. Where is she?"
"Jim's talking with her."
After a glance around the immediate area, Sara was unimpressed with the amount of evidence apparent. "There's not much here. Hopefully we'll know more when we get him back to the lab."
Grissom nodded. "This dead man's going to have to tell us some tales."
"Hi guys." David's words signaled his approach. Grissom again pulled back a corner of the plastic sheeting. "Wow, this was brutal. He doesn't look like he's been dead long." The consensus, based on the victim's liver temperature, was that he had been murdered about four hours prior.
Having finished his preliminary interview with the homeowner, Jim Brass joined them. "Michael Snowden," he announced. "He's the manager of the bank where…" he pointed at the distraught young woman being comforted by her neighbors, "Lisa Alomar is a teller."
As David prepared the body for transport, Sara found her thoughts drifting to her supervisor. Weeks had passed since she heard his words to Dr. Lurie, but she wasn't any closer to knowing what to do than she was that first night. Should she confront him about it? How? Perhaps she would be better off ignoring it; he'd made it painfully clear that he wasn't planning to discuss anything personal with her, much less pursue a relationship.
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Grissom sat in the break room with his crossword puzzle. He would normally work on it in the comfortable seclusion of his office, but he was trying to socialize more with his team. Warrick and Nick were engaged in a serious debate about the merits of Jennifer Lopez vs. those of Britney Spears. Catherine was on a Girl Scout campout with Lindsey. And Sara, Grissom suspected, was likely studying the plastic from their DB on a cellular level.
"I take it this means you two wrapped up your armed robbery?"
"Report's on your desk," Warrick confirmed.
"What do you think Griss? Britney or J. Lo?" Nick wondered.
On a visceral level, Grissom wanted to tune out the Texan, but he decided instead to offer a nonspecific answer in the hope of dodging the offensive question. "Neither is really my type."
"What is your type?" Nick pressed on with a wide grin. He paid no heed to Warrick's warning glare. "I never see you date anybody."
Tall, intelligent brunettes with beautiful brown eyes and amazing gap-toothed smiles. That's my type. No, it wouldn't do to give that answer to Nick and Warrick. He opted to evade the first question and answer the statement.
"And you never will. I like to keep my personal life personal," Grissom replied with a shrug.
"Hey," Sara spoke from the doorway. "Got a hit on the prints off the plastic—it's cut-up garbage bags, by the way. Justin Alexander. Brass is bringing him in."
Grissom flashed her a half-smile. "Very good."
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"Oh, God," Lisa Alomar sobbed. "I can't believe this. I never, ever thought Justin would do anything like this."
Grissom stood in the observation gallery as Sara and Brass interviewed the woman. Given her emotional state, they had decided that two interviewers were more than sufficient.
"You were dating Justin?" Sara asked.
"Yes."
"For how long?"
"Seven or eight months. Oh God, this is all my fault!"
"How is it your fault?"
"I never loved Justin. I went out with him because the guy I do love didn't love me. I was trying to move on."
Her words hit Sara like a punch in the gut. Lisa's tear-streaked face clouded over with a faraway expression.
"I was in love with Michael," she said softly.
"Michael Snowden?"
Lisa nodded. "And Justin knew it. I knew I was being unfair to him, so I told him the truth and broke it off. He was so angry! He said if Michael couldn't open his eyes and see what was right in front of him, he didn't deserve me."
Sara faced the wall, gathering her thoughts and steeling herself. When she turned back to Lisa, and to the mirrored wall, she began to speak.
"Justin killed Michael. That's Justin's fault, not yours, Lisa. You and I, we're really not so different." Sara searched both her memory and her heart to find the right words.
"A couple of thirty-something women with the misfortune to fall in love with someone who just happens to be in a position of authority. We spend months—years—trying to get him to see us as women, not as employees. All we want is to love and be loved by him. Sometimes he seems receptive, sometimes he doesn't."
Sara paced the room as she spoke. The words were coming easily now. "But we have a decision to make, don't we? Either he's not picking up the hints, or he's not interested. And the only way to find out is to lay our heart on the line and tell him exactly how we feel. I couldn't do it."
Grissom stared through the glass, too stunned to process what his ears were hearing. He knew that Sara was aware of his presence. What was she doing? Had she somehow heard his confession to the twisted surgeon? Was she saying she had been in love with him? Was he reading too much into this?
Sara continued sadly. "And apparently neither could you. But we were tired, so tired, of being alone. He was telling us we needed to find a diversion, but he never offered to be that diversion, did he? So we thought he wasn't interested, and we looked elsewhere. Only to find out too late that he did want it." Sara fought back a barrage of tears. Her voice broke as she spoke. "Only now do we learn that in trying to move on, we blew our only chance."
"Yeah." Lisa nodded knowingly. "Only your guy's still here."
"Is he?" Sara asked in a whisper.
"You're free to go, Ms. Alomar," Jim said softly. He followed her out of the room, leaving Sara alone. Sara turned away from the mirror, head low and shoulders hunched.
As Brass passed by a paralyzed Grissom, he gave his friend a pointed look and said seriously "That's your cue."
Grissom stood outside the interrogation room for several moments longer. What was he supposed to say to her? All of these months, he believed she had chosen another man over him. But he hadn't actually given her a choice, had he? She had just revealed that if she had known she had a choice, she would have chosen him. It was exactly what he had longed to hear. Why was he standing out here when she was in there?
With a new determination, he pushed open the door and entered the room, shutting the door and closing the blinds behind him. Sara still stood with her back to him. He gently spun her around to face him, and from the moment their eyes met, they knew that their lives would never be the same. They each began to tear up again. As they fell into each other's arms, Sara buried her face in his neck until the tears stopped. Then she pulled away slightly to look in his eyes.
"I'm sorry," she said simply.
Grissom gave her a slight smile. "No, I'm sorry." He squinted and tilted his head a bit. "Are we the two biggest fools on the planet?"
Sara chuckled sadly. "I think we are. Truly pathetic."
"Not anymore." He brushed the tears from her cheek. "I think we just got a lot smarter."
The End