The Suspension – Day One
The annoying beep-beep-beep of the alarm clock woke Sara out of a restless nights sleep. "Damn" she groaned as she saw the bright green numbers shining in the darkened bedroom. 'What a dumb idea' she thought as she rolled over to shut off the alarm. Sitting up on the side of the bed Sara had two things on her mind: the overwhelming sadness about the events of the day before… and movement. If she sat there too long Sara knew she would lay back down, possibly not getting out of bed for the entire week, but that wasn't what she wanted. If that happened then Ecklie wins, Catherine wins, her past wins. Grumbling all the way to the bathroom Sara wanted to begin her first full day of suspension with a positive beginning— but this just seemed much too early for her.
Grissom rounded the corner heading to his office. He had spoken to Greg about his court date and was feeling pretty confident about Greg going solo on any case, if he needed him to, while Sara was on suspension. Once he reached his office he read over the letter that would be delivered to Sara later on this morning. One week suspension, without pay as Ecklie had originally told Sara, no additional stipulations or sidebars. He put the letter in the envelope so that it could be delivered by courier.
He sat in his office thinking about the events of yesterday. It had taken a lot for Sara to open up to him about her traumatic childhood and Grissom understood the significance of it. They had not shared any personal feelings with each other in a long time and Grissom knew that it was him who had caused the tear in their friendship. He had been working on getting back the closeness that they once shared. But yesterday was a total awakening for him, he had experienced a fear he never acknowledged before—the fear of losing Sara. Grissom could feel a shift happening within his psyche and this time he wasn't going to fight it. He looked at his watch to see that he had about an hour left to work and wondered if it was too early to call Sara and see if she was up to having company for breakfast.
Sara leaned against the patio window looking out at the morning sky. Sipping on a hot cup of coffee, for a quick jumpstart, Sara's mind wandered back to Grissom reaching out to her the day before. She didn't know what to do about this thing with him now. Before her sessions with the police employee assistance program she thought that she knew what those feelings were. But now she understood that there was so much more to take into consideration, her past and how it affects her choices in men; and whether true love was ever going to be in her future.
After she took a big gulp of coffee, Sara put on her hooded jacket and headed out into the early Las Vegas morning. She had on her black leotards and gray cut off tee shirt. And her hair was pulled back in a ponytail that flipped up to keep it off her neck. She stopped outside, stretching her long legs on the steps of her apartment building while inside her apartment, the phone rang. The answering machine clicked on, Grissom's voice echoed in her empty apartment as he called out her name a couple of times and then said something about not wanting to wake her up and trying again later.
Nick Stokes flipped open his cell phone as he turned over in bed. "Stokes speaking," he said.
"Hey man," said Warrick Brown on the other end of the line, "how 'bout we go over and see what's happening with Sara before we head over to the courthouse this morning?"
Nick smiled and nodded his head. "Yeah, I've been thinking about going over to her place and since we don't get to work together anymore let's just let Sara know we're still here for her."
TBC