Red Dust
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Yet one more take. I've got a billion of them.
I tried to put you away, and already I feel like you're back. Sara sighed as she realised what had felt like years since she had last given it any thought had been but weeks. It just didn't ease.
There had, against all odds, been a turning point. A break through. A moment of breathlessness, so close to home. As she had closed her eyes and balled her fist and taken a deep, deep breath, she had finally been sure of something. Her mouth had touched his, and there was no taking that back. He could run and she could hide but it would remain, a quiet, solid being that could not, and, damn it, would not, be erased.
The touching had gone on for far longer than she had dared hope. At first she expected him to break the spell, to stand back, to loose her, to recoil. He did not, and she grew more comfortable and curious by the second. A first kiss, and a second. A tender, tender embrace, something so delicate and strong she felt that she could live in it. As his hand slipped tentatively across her shoulder blades she didn't know if it would prompt her to grow wings or break her back. In a thousand places. She was certainly paralysed.
His face gave it all away, the words he could not say and the gestures he hoped could adequately replace them. She knew what his fingers were saying, tracing a light pattern across her forearm. I'm in danger. You mesmerise – and terrify – me. His kiss grew feverish, his lips pulling at hers. I want to run from you, but I can't let you go. His hands found their way into her hair, knotting it around his fingers. I am not choosing this. It is choosing me.
Her body spoke back. As if to quiet his raging mind, she touched the very nape of his neck, stroking it softly. I'm terrified too. As if to answer his fitful cry, she ran her tongue along his bottom lip. I've wanted you for so long. As if to still his wavering heart, she laced her fingers with his. You're safer than you've ever been.
They were locked together for what felt like days. The desert grew dark around them. The car she had been ready to get in stood, door flung wide, behind them, proof of how unprepared she was. She always thought she would see the time coming, if the time ever came, and for so many years she tried to convince herself that it would not. When it had, she had shocked herself and him to the core. She had kissed him. She who had always been sure, who had always known he was not, who had always sworn to herself and his disappearing back that he would have to make the first move.
They were alone in the desert, examining a shallow grave they had been called out to. There had been others, police officers, coroner, other CSIs, but in the end it had come down to them. In Sara's head it was what everything came down to. As they had finished processing in comfortable silence, she had looked up, and felt the familiar pang in her side at the sight of him. Wearing his blue flak jacket and cap, every bit the genius workaholic she loved, she watched how delicate and precise his movements were. Forgetting herself for a moment, she rocked back onto her heels and allowed herself a rare moment of unadulterated observation. From so close a quarters, this was bold, but somehow, in that moment, her knees sinking into the red dust, she didn't care.
Inevitably, he had looked up, breaking his concentration briefly. He had looked away, and then back at her, surprise registering on his face as he took stock of her. Sitting. Looking. Smiling, now.
"What?"
Her smile had grown, slipped sideways as only her genuine smiles did.
"Nothing."
He had gone back to work, his face betraying that he was more than a little disconcerted. She had done likewise then, pushing up from her heels to kneel forward once more, attending to the now empty grave. Minutes passed. When next she looked up, he was looking at her.
And so it had continued, one furtive glance after another. Sara was on top of the world. She felt the overwhelming thrill that could only come from working, and working with him, so well, so privately, with such unwitting communication. She felt part of something irreplaceable. She chose not to speak again, and was rewarded with some less than mediocre conversation that set her alight. They spoke of death and life, as they often did, but these words were loaded, and she spoke as she meant to with only a thin veil of metaphor for defence. It was daring, she knew, but something in his countenance was daring her.
"Death is the ultimate certainty, though, isn't it?" She said.
"Only in it's inevitability. It's form, that's inevitably uncertain," he replied, screwing the lid onto an evidence container and labelling it.
"But you know without a doubt that death is coming. In some ways that one of the only constants we have in life. Everything else is unknown – we go through life looking for answers."
He had looked at her then from under his cap, trying, she imagined, to gauge whether this was genuine philosophising or a gentle push. Her face must have given her away, for he looked down, thoughtful.
"I know I do." She added, carefully. He did not look up, but something flashed across his face. Fear, perhaps, of what she might say next. She drew a deep breath and began to add more, another ambiguity for him to wrestle with. He spoke before she could.
"You're not the only one." His eyes betrayed him. He looked as though he had wanted that to sound flippant, light, meaningless but for the simplest of explanations. It didn't wash. Sara stared at him, her eyes boring into him, silently begging him to say more. None came.
"I'm glad to hear that." Her voice had grown quiet, and when he dared to look up she had risen and moved to another patch, just far enough away that conversation was made awkward.
His joints began to ache first. Finishing what he was doing, he stood and sealed the evidence bag, gathering up his kit and packing it away. Sara noticed his movements but was not quite finished. It took her another five minutes before she was doing likewise. She opened her car door and dropped her vest onto the seat, glad to be rid of it's weight. She was aching too, and was glad that they were done, although disappointed somehow that their little oasis of alone was coming to an end. They would drive back, in separate cars, and the spell would be broken. They would start off driving one behind the other, and then some errant driver would intersect their journey, and they would arrive a few minutes apart. That would disappoint her too, although she couldn't reason why it should.
She sighed, wondering again why everything had to touch her, why every little thing with him either lulled or stung – neither were feelings she was comfortable with. For him she had always been a rock face, solid, dependable, unchanging, daring him to begin the climb. Lately she was like water – hot and cold and all over the place. She took it as a sign of her patience waning, and told herself she had decided there was nothing to lose. Looking at him then, she saw the flaws in that theory. There was everything to lose, she just couldn't imagine not one day winning. It was what kept her going, what allowed her to yell at him sometimes, to stalk away or toss her head and vent at him, the silent promise that she would one day kiss that all away.
He made her feel sick, he made her feel crazy. He made her fret and sigh and curse out loud. Sometimes late at night he made her cry. And there were times in her sleep when he made her sweat. He upset the very balance of her, set everything on edge and sent a cool shiver down her spine with just one look. When her sheets were soaked and her eyes wouldn't dry and her body shook with the unfairness of it all, she would ask herself how she was still breathing. She would ask herself why she let this happen. She would inwardly rant and ravage and try to resist, building walls to keep him out, creating infallible reasons why she wouldn't and shouldn't. She would grow new resolve. Then she would go to work. And there he would be. And she would slide gracefully, willingly, breathlessly, back to the place she knew best.
"Sara?" She had been staring again.
"Yeah."
"You done?"
She nodded and approached him, holding out the bag of evidence for him to place in the trunk of his car with the rest. She stood at his shoulder as he reached up and took hold of the trunk door, lowering it slowly. She was in the way, and he unthinkingly used his free hand to guide her clear of it. His fingers alighted on her bare skin, fingertip to shoulder, a surreptitious slipping movement, brushing forearm and wrist before it was over. She closed her eyes, a split second that he wouldn't notice. He did notice, because he was staring at her, and as the hatch clicked into place a new, formidable density surrounded them. She felt bound to look at him, and as three seconds turned into ten and then into twenty she waited for him to look away.
He did not, but stared back, a slightly curious expression lurking. Don't look at me like that, she begged silently, knowing that she was weak, and that there was only so much she could bear. Not unless you mean it. His lips parted slightly, but still his eyes remained. What do you want from me? She cried inside, remembering asking him that out loud once before. He had looked away that time. Eventually. And then, as if in slow motion, she saw it begin, His eyelids lowered, just a millionth of some small distance – but she caught it. His face began to turn, so slowly, to the side. She was losing him.
She had lost before. They had shared moments like this before and come away unscathed. Untouched, quite literally, and her body had ached for days afterwards, grieving for the lost sensation and the moment missed.
Not this time. As his eyes swept downwards, bowing out, she took a deep, deep breath. Summoning strength that was not her own, she grabbed both his hands. He stiffened, paused, blinked. Then his eyes continued, turning further and further away. Knowing she had not done enough, she swallowed hard and stepped out of her own skin, and right into him. Standing now within his arms, he had no choice but to look at her. His mouth was open, half amazed, half appalled. A risky little game, she knew.
"Sara.." His tone was a whisper, but there was a warning in there somewhere. Dismissing it completely, she smiled, moving closer until her face was close to his. She dared not think, as she set herself up for the worst possible rejection. Mere millimetres from him, she spoke, her voice thick with desire and fear.
"Tell me to stop," she whispered, brushing her lips just once across his. He flinched, but didn't pull away. His breathing became ragged very quickly, and she knew this was fight or flight.
"Tell me, and I will," she said again, touching her lips to his once more. It was just the faintest touch, but it sent him over the edge. He let go, and kissed her deeply, as though physically unable to do anything but. He stopped, immediately, and again she thought he would bail out. Instead he bit his lip, looked at her, his eyes flitting from side to side as though reading, reading her. Then he placed both hands on her waist, and she expected him to move her aside. He didn't. Holding her carefully, he kissed her again, the gentlest of explorations beginning.
And so it had grown dark. All that eventually tore them apart was the persistent ringing of Grissom's phone in the car. Penetrating the heady peace they had established, the noise seemed deafening, a siren meant to warn him, to send him skittering and shying away from her.
In the end he gave in, and reluctantly pulled away from her. As he talked on the phone Sara tried to re group, finding that nothing was the way it had been hours before. The night had closed in and the world had grown light as a feather, the familiar crushing weight of never going to happen disappearing with the last pockets of light. She felt peculiar, she felt amazing. Doubts dashed, answers to six and seven year old questions lingered around them, basking on the red rocks. Yes, he does. She couldn't help but smile. He has wanted what I've wanted. She shook her head, still unable to take it all in. Just breathe.
He hung up the phone and turned in the dusk to look at her. No longer trying to hide, no more the boss, no more the friend, his face showed exactly what he felt. What they both felt. That they had wasted so much time, and that what they had just done was beyond anything they could have imagined. He closed the distance between them. So much to say, now, and no need to say anything. She smiled. You make me shake. He smiled back. You're beautiful.
"We have to get back." He actually looked sorry, as though he could have stood there all night. She nodded, happy even to think of work once more, knowing the pleasure would be all the greater now.
He kissed her once more, surprising her, affirming that this was not a mistake, not a cruel trick of the light that would return to haunt her. She smoothed the collar of his jacket, and turned away. She got in her car and let him close the door for her. She switched on her headlights and watched him drive off, all the while unable to stop the spread of her smile. When she was certain she could keep it under wraps, she started the engine. Driving away, she felt in control, and she felt, for once, like she might be winning.
When two days had passed and she hadn't managed one moment alone with him, Sara wasn't overtly worried. They were surrounded by the rest of the team, and there was never a right time, neither of them confident enough yet to orchestrate such a thing. They worked constantly, and she was barely sleeping, so wasn't disappointed to be spending her night off alone. She knew he was working, and reminded herself that if she had wanted a man who would be waiting for her at the end of the day she should have fallen for an accountant. As if there was anything she could do about that.
On the fourth day, she started to grow anxious. He hadn't called. She hadn't expected him to, but had anticipated they would find a moment between times at work, a moment where one of them might allude to what came next. Some time spent alone, she hoped, without the worry of work or the threat of interruption. The fifth day was his night off, and on the sixth she resolved to seek him out.
Knocking on his office door, she waited for him to look up, wanting to see that look in his eyes when he realised it was her. In its place was fear, and instinctively he looked over her shoulder as though she might be hiding Ecklie behind her back.
"It's just me, " she said. He took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"What is it, Sara?"
"Are you okay?," Sara began, and then stopped. " I mean, are we okay?"
"What do you mean?"
"Do you… do we need to talk about the other night?"
Her heart sank as he gave her his standard quizzical look.
"What about it?"
Worst fears confirmed, she knew immediately that she was about to get very, very hurt. She looked at him, mouth open, incredulous.
"I don't believe you." There were tears in her eyes, anger and frustration beating sadness hands down, threatening to spill over without warning.
"What?" That did it for her. The tears sprang, and she left, making it to the hallway before they hit her cheeks, making hot tracks down her face. Tasting salt, she walked quickly to the restroom and stood in front of the mirror. She gave herself a moment's release, free reign for a few more drops to form on her eyelashes, and then she told herself enough was enough.
You've given it all you have, she told her reflection, leaning on the sink for strength. Nothing you can do. She nodded silently, making a fist and releasing it, feeling some of the anger ebb away. That's it, she told herself, it's over. Wiping her eyes, she strode back out into the hall. With each step she took her shoulders sank, miserable under the unshakeable feeling that it would never really be over.
Three weeks later, Sara was through the anger and the bitterness. She was still breathing, still working. Finding herself able to put on a remarkable act, she just lowered her head and pushed through. Outwardly she was fine, untouched by it all, determined to carry on. Inwardly, she was confused, and so very, very sad.
In spite of his coldness, she blamed herself. For daring to dream, for putting him in that position where to rebuff would hurt her, something she knew he would never actively choose. That was his problem, he never wanted to hurt her but he wasn't willing or able to do anything to prevent it. Once upon a time she would have said their problem. No more.
She didn't give him a hard time. She didn't give him anything. He was sheepish, and well he might be. She didn't talk to him any more than work demanded, but she didn't avoid it either. He tried, once. There was pain in his eyes, but nothing compared to the pain she was shouldering. She let him try, watched him clam up when she didn't react, and walked away. She didn't feel angry towards him, not now. She felt stripped, and humiliated. He had given her the most beautiful, exquisite memory, and then a car crash to wipe it out.
All the while she waited for closure to arrive. She'd read and heard about it. It was supposed to come after last chance saloon, after last ditch attempts, after the aftermath. She went to bed each morning after her shift without thinking too much, without her customary beer on the back porch, without taking a moment to enjoy the first light of day and remind herself what was lost.. The less thinking time the better, the quicker, she hoped, this would go away. She wanted to wake up and feel less, and after some weeks, it did begin to ease. She kept busy, took overtime, read books about other people and tried to convince herself that she was going through one of those rites of passage that apparently make you who you are. Those things people describe when they say they came out the other side a better person for it. She did not feel better.
In the third week the weather began to break, the days getting shorter and the temperature dropping. Sara took to running in the early evening, when the sun had slipped down low enough for a cool, crisp couple of laps around her neighbourhood. She didn't go far at first, out of practice as she found she was. She was a seasonal runner, or more accurately a sporadical one. She ran for the way it made her feel. It was the physical release she had needed, and the feel of her body challenged and breathing hard was good, it made her feel alive. Revitalised, she would shower and turn up for work feeling calm.
Five days into her running regime she pushed herself a little and increased her route, adding another two blocks each way. The extra half mile exhausted her, and she came home feeling tired but accomplished. She stretched out in the parking lot and walked in to her building, stripping off her jacket ready to drop it in the laundry on the way to the shower. As she came around the corner she heard the phone ring. She thought it was hers, but she couldn't be sure, and she had done enough running for one day. It would only be work, or... no, it would only be work. When she opened the door the ringing stopped, and she went straight to the shower, enjoying the fact that she could confidently discount all the possibilities a ringing phone posed. Well, perhaps not confidently, but she managed it all the same.
Taking a long shower was both a reward for the run and preparation for the shift ahead. She liked the routine, washing her hair in the evenings so that she was fresh and clean. She dried her hair at about the same time every night, and then let it fall loose around her shoulders. When first dried it fell in great waves, and she half heartedly timed her shower so that it would have dropped almost straight by the time she got to work. She didn't care too much, but she cared a little, and habits died hard. All of them, she thought, as she looked at herself in her bathroom mirror, the hairdryer dropped at her feet in messy coils of cable. Her shoulders sank a little, and she watched the corners of her mouth slip as the banished thoughts made a brief return. The truth was, she just didn't want to put them away, but she had no idea how to live if she did not. You've made it too hard, she told him in her head, and stared intently at her reflection, determined to find something there other than the one he did not want.
"I know I've made this hard," he said, standing in her door way, as though he had heard her. Sara blinked, waiting for the illusion to end. It didn't, and she tried to process the idea that there really had been a knock on the door, and it really had been him standing there when she had opened it.
"What are you doing here?" She held on to the door, neither opening it wider nor creeping it shut. She was blindsided. She had nothing.
"I tried to call. Can I come in?" He sensed her reticence, she could tell. "Please."
"Not a good time." He bowed his head and took a long moment before speaking again. Tears burned the backs of Sara's eyes. Just the very sight of him was too much. Everything she wanted coupled with the one who could, and had, hurt her most. He looked up at her, trying to read her body language. The message ought to have been clear. How did you expect me to be?
"Sara.." he began, but she cut him off this time.
"I have to go to work. So if you're just here to tiptoe around me some more, we can do that there." His face crumbled, and his gaze fled to the floor once more.
"I'm not here to.." he began, and stopped. She fixed him with her grave, unhappy look. At work she had pasted on a neutral face, but this was the true colour of what he had done. He tried again.
"I'm not here to tiptoe around anything. I came to say I'm sorry. " She shrugged, but he could see that she was listening. Damn you, she thought, why am I listening to this?
"I don't want to defend the way I behaved. I can't. I don't know... well I know it was bad. I'm not good at these things."
"What things?"
"These.. things like this..you.."
"Things like what, Grissom? Cos as far as I can tell, in fact what you've made really clear to me is that there is no this at all. "
"You know what I mean."
"Actually, I don't. I thought I did, and look where that got me." She wished immediately she hadn't said that, as the very suggestion brought the image flooding back. The two of them in the dusk-red desert, sending beautiful shivers through one another's cautious bodies. It brought to mind how perfect it had felt, and served as an acidic reminder of how empty everything since had become.
"Sara.." She cut him off once more.
"I guess I didn't realise how wrong I could be." She folded her arms over her chest, making it clear that the conversation was over. Grissom looked at her, resigned. His expression was pained, and in spite of herself, she felt it touch her.
"You weren't wrong, Sara. I just can't.. I'm afraid.. I'm afraid of how complicated this could be. I'm afraid that it'll affect our work. I'm afraid of.." Same old, same old, she thought, wondering why he had come. To offload the feeling of guilt for letting her down, maybe. Or to mend the atmosphere in the lab, perhaps.
"Most of all I'm afraid that I've ruined it before it's even begun." She looked up then, surprised. His voice softened. "I'm terrified of how I feel about you. But I just can't let it go." She wasn't expecting that. It silenced her, and even as she stood, arms folded like a battlement across her chest, she felt herself begin to waver. Just looking at him made her weak. He may have sensed her thinning resolve, for he reached out and took her hand. He slowly traced the line of her jaw with his other hand, stroking her skin in a gesture that made Sara want to drop to her knees. The moment shuddered to a slow crawl, time inching by as he now cupped her face in both hands, strong hands holding her, drawing her little by little towards him. Her feet were dangerously near the edge, and as her eyes closed she almost, almost stepped off.
"No." Hereyes snapped open, and she firmly pulled his hands from her face.
"I don't know what you want me to do."
"Nothing. It doesn't work like that."
"Sara.."
"No, Grissom! We could have this conversation three weeks ago. But instead you just disappear into your own head and leave me to figure it out. And I did figure it out, you made it pretty damn clear that this isn't what you want. "
He wasn't shocked. He must have known he had that coming, and he seemed to bear it well. Sara could feel the tears coming, and she wanted this to be over. She didn't want him to see her cry.
"I think you should go." He nodded, sadly. She watched him turn away. He took a few steps, and as she began to close the door, biting her lip to keep the tears at bay for a few more seconds, he turned. His eyes glistened, and she was shocked to see that there were tears there, too.
"It is what I want," he said, and then he was gone. Sara began to shake as she shut the door, letting the racking sobs take over, knowing that this was what her body had wanted to do all along, what no amount of running or pretending would replace. She didn't try to stem it, but let her grief take its course. Grief for a chance passed, for a moment ruined, for a fear realised. She had cried like this only once before since coming to Vegas. He had held her hand that time. This time he was nowhere to be found, except at the very heart of her sadness, and that made her cry all the more.
When Sara got to work, Grissom was already out on a case. He had left others for the rest of the team. She did not think too hard about whether or not he was avoiding her. She was tired, exhausted from it all, and wanted distraction. Work was the perfect tangent, and she allowed herself to be driven to the crime scene without her usual competitive need to be behind the wheel. She assessed, processed, all in silence, and was glad of it. She didn't trust her voice not to betray her inner numbness. By the time she returned to the lab with a bag full of evidence and several theories forming in her mind, she was engrossed, and the rest of the night passed without sight nor mention of the man who was breaking her heart. A strange calm had descended upon her, and she trusted it.
It was 6am when Grissom finally sat down at his desk, having been all night at a scene and then an autopsy. There was an imposing stack of files on his desk, as per usual. The top one caught his eye. It was the case file he thought he had left for Sara and Warrick to take. He opened it, wondering if in his newly acquired black mood he had been careless.
The reports were there, case closed. It seemed it had been a simple suicide, and his team had dealt with it deftly and quietly, without needing him at all. He felt a small pang of regret, but knew it was more to do with the thought of her not needing him than the team in general.
Quickly he checked through the file, a routine survey so that he could pass it along as complete and make his pile just a little smaller. There were the crime scene photographs, the autopsy report, everything in order. As he closed the file a small slip of paper stuck out from beneath the top page. He opened it again, and clipped to Sara's report was a departmental compliments slip. Her handwriting stretched across it.
I can't let go either.
Sara was the last one out that morning. The sun was breaking through the clouds as she pushed through the front door and carried her kit to her car. As she closed the trunk and walked around to the driver's door a car pulled up in front of hers, blocking it in. She shut the driver's door and went over to the car and leant in at the window. Grissom gave her a half smile, and she could see the relief in his eyes.
"Get in." Sara thought about it, but didn't argue. She had no more powers of reason or energy to resist. It made about as much sense as anything else that morning. As what had prompted her to break her resolve, to go back on her word and set herself up for yet another major fall. She got in the car.
"Where are we going?" He slid the car into gear.
"Back over old ground, " he replied. Again, no sense.
"You can say that again," she sighed, as she held up the remote key to her car, locking it.
He took her to the very spot. Pulling the car over what had, weeks earlier, been a crime scene, the dust rose in great plumes around them. Sara let it settle before she turned to look at him, but he got out of the car and came around to her door. He held out his hand to her, and she took it, letting him pull her to her feet. There was nothing for miles in any direction. Desert stretched in front of them, and on the other side of the road, into a distant horizon. The road itself disappeared eventually into a fine point. It was like the end of the world. Or the beginning, she thought, as he kept hold of her hand, loosely intertwining his fingers with hers. In the silence she had chance to think about how that felt, and whether it was to be trusted. Nothing happened. He held her hand, and they stood, side by side, looking out over the expanse, and nothing broke. He did not speak, he did not pull away. He did not try to say anything that would send her spiralling back down into doubt. After ten minutes of wrestling with herself in the silence, Sara was forced to admit that in spite of everything, it felt, quite simply, amazing.
Eventually, a long while later, he did speak. He did not look at her, but stroked the back of her hand with his thumb.
"This is what I want, Sara. And I'll wait as long as it takes for you to trust me on that."
She lowered her head and watched the dust whirl in small circles around her feet. She let go of his hand. He sighed, fearing failure. She let her arm wander onto his back, and tucked her hand around his waist. He looked at her then, and slowly, holding his breath, did likewise. Sara had to admit it felt good, and knew that all muster her case had held was falling to pieces. She wanted so badly to be strong, to be resilient and to protect herself. But as it all became so clear to her she realised that she just wanted him more.
She stepped closer to him, and this time there was no flash of fear in his eyes. He smiled at her, was transfixed by her. She took hold of his shirt, slowly, wanting him but afraid of him, the tables neatly turned. She wasn't going to kiss him. The final frontier had to be crossed by him. The ultimate act of faith, the evidence to prove his theory. Do that, her body was telling him, and I'll know.
He did not hesitate. Without taking his eyes from her, he leaned in, a slow, protracted movement, no rushing before he changed his mind. He kissed her like she had always wanted to be kissed, and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. His hands made it once again into her hair, and moved round to cradle her face. His tongue found hers, blinding her momentarily with the sensation. I do want this. She placed her hands over his, holding them as they held her. I know. He kissed her over and over, small, delicate speech marks, punctuation for the statement he was making. You're safe. I promise. She wrapped her arms around his neck, stroking the nape as she had done, in another life, in another time. I know.