Pull Focus
Disclaimer: I own nothing, I earn nothing. I just make them do things... ho ho ho.
Notes: For the bestkeptsecret 100 greatest movie lines challenge. And many thanks to smacky30 for the great beta.
"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."
Looking down at the man slumped in front of her; Sara decided that his weary soliloquy was meant for the beer bottle that sat in front of him. She slid onto the stool next to him and, seeing his flinch as her hand hovered over his shoulder, instead lay her arms on the bar, mimicking his posture.
"Well, when she is a trained investigator who knows where you drink and wants to find you, I'd put my money on it."
Grissom shot her a glance out of the corner of his eye. He waved over the bartender before returning his attention to the oversized television at the back of the room. She took it as a silent offer to stay, ordered a corona and lime and wondered if they would talk.
He had stormed from their house earlier that morning, irritated by her well intentioned questions, yelling first about her presence and then about space, about needing to get away. Despite Sara's bravado, it had been an hour before she started looking for him and another hour until she actually found him. She wanted to talk but, given time to dwell on the morning's scene, she also wanted to hit him upside the head and wasn't exactly sure about which impulse would win. So they sat together, not quite acknowledging each other, just listening to baseball pundits ramble on about players and form and the weather in the break between innings.
"I didn't think you'd want to." His voice was soft and stubborn. For a moment Sara thought she had imagined it under the noise of the bar and the game but his posture had shifted. Grissom seemed to shrink inwards, as though to shield himself from the fall-out of the vulnerability of his words.
Sara said nothing, just took a pull on her lager and settled into the game as a player's disagreement with the umpire turned into a brawl on the field seeming to involve most of the people on the pitch. Boys and sports… She snorted in derision, watching as more people ran into the fray, though to join in or break it up; she was having a hard time deciding.
"So much for baseball being a beautiful game."
Grissom sighed and stretched his clasped hands out across the bar. "So I lied. But there's no crying in baseball and that's good enough for me."
She shifted on her stool and stretched out a hand. Not wanting to make him bolt she awkwardly stroked his shirt cuff. "You didn't make me cry Gil."
"I wanted to though, Sara. I wanted to hurt you." He ducked his head, making eye contact even harder. "I'd never raise a hand against you, but I just… wanted to cause you pain."
She stretched her hand out and grasped his fingers. "So you apologise. You tell me you're sorry and I accept because I know you are. Then we go home and forget about it until I'm the one running on no sleep with a case that just won't make sense and you're the nearest person for me to take it out on."
Grissom turned his captive hand and laced his fingers through her own gripping so tight it almost hurt.
"My Mom…" He took a breath and twisted in his seat. "My Mom used to tell me that she and my Dad never argued a day in their lives. Twelve years of marriage and never an angry word. "Love means never having to say you're sorry..." He was obviously reciting someone else's words and Sara assumed it was a lesson he had received more than once in his life. He upended the last dregs of his bottle and swallowed heavily. "I shouldn't have to apologise Sara because there shouldn't be anything to apologise for."
A silence followed his speech. Grissom wondered if he had finally alienated Sara, if she would take that as an admission that he did not love her properly, could not love as he was supposed to. He wondered if he was meant to reassure her otherwise, knowing that he would not be able to get the words out correctly.
"My Dad used to tell me that too."
He looked up sharply, but Sara was staring intently ahead, running her thumbnail under the edge of the label on her bottle. Of all the responses he had imagined, both soothing and accusatory, this was not one of them. Sara spoke about her mom on occasion, neither good nor bad, just little observations about her that did not require discussion. But her father was mentioned so rarely that he had no idea about how to handle this turn in their conversation. He moved a hand to the small of her back.
"Sara…"
She pulled away sharply, rounding on him from where she sat, pressing one accusing finger into his chest. "So don't you dare sit there and tell me you don't know how to love properly. Because I know what that feels like, and this is nowhere near." Running one pale hand through her hair she cursed and slid from her stool, the energy raised by her speech too great to let her sit, and Grissom jumped from his, one arm out, afraid of her fleeing.
"I didn't say I don't know how to love properly!" His voice was rough as he eased his outstretched arm around her waist, pulling Sara back into his personal space. "I'm just saying… I am going to mess up, probably a lot, and maybe one day you're going to get tired of having to pick everything up after the old man. I'm jealous and stupid and insecure and have a hot, young, genius girlfriend. Maybe I'm a little bit terrified here."
He loosened his grip on Sara and she looked from the open buttons on his polo shirt to his face. "You think you've got it bad? I'm dating my older, emotionally stilted, GQ-looking, genius boss who has somehow has managed to string me along during what where supposed to be the best years of my life. If anyone should be terrified here, it should be me."
"I wasn't stringing you along. On purpose." Grissom looked horrified at the accusation and Sara had to stifle a laugh in her throat.
"And I'm not so young. Okay, Mr GQ?"
Grissom lifted his chin, preening playfully at her words, as Sara swung an arm into his side. The tension between them had disappeared and he tightened both his arms around her, ignoring a set of wolf-whistles that came their way.
"You are too good for me Sara. Just be patient with me, please."
He pressed a kiss into her hair as Sara struggled to get her arms out of his clasp, laying them around his shoulders and holding the back of his neck with one cool hand.
Leaning back so she could look intently into his eyes, she said, "Listen to me, mister. You're my knight in shining armour, don't you forget it. You're going to get back on that horse, and I'm going to be right behind you, holding on tight, and away we 're gonna go, go, go."
He kissed her properly then, warm and firm, not caring about other patrons in the bar. As he swung her around to sit on the bar stool he heard a woman comment bawdily, "I'll have what she's having."
END
LINES
"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." – Casablanca
"There's no crying in baseball." – A League Of Their Own
"Love, means never having to say you're sorry." – Love Story
"Listen to me, mister. You're my knight in shining armour, don't you forget it. You're going to get back on that horse, and I'm going to be right behind you, holding on tight, and away we 're gonna go, go, go." – On Golden Pond
"I'll have what she's having." – When Harry Met Sally