Post-Play With Fire, completely disregarding any episodes following it. With thanks to Laura & Sarah.
Play With Fire
x.x.x
'sometimes you play with fire, sometimes you get burned'
x.x.x
He sits on the small sofa and swings his feet up, so he's lying across the length of it. He kicks his worn shoes off over the end and throws his head back harshly, letting it hit the brown leather of the armrest. Hot pokers inch their way around the circumference of his head, and hitting it on the arm of the sofa doesn't help – not that he seems to mind. He doesn't seem to feel a thing. It's not that he doesn't want to feel, more that he doesn't feel as though he can. Feeling means opening his heart and being vulnerable, and vulnerability is something he can't – won't – show, under any circumstance. Especially not to her. He has to protect her, not the other way round.
" I'm, uh... sorry I missed your page. It's just, um... you tell me to get a life and then I get one, and then you expect me to be there at a moment's notice. It's... um... confusing."
Her words spin around in his head, merging together to make a flurry of incoherent sounds, until all he hears is the shrill chime of what sounds like a bell before his surroundings spin suddenly and all he sees is black. Nothing is black for long, though, because his dreams are in colour, bright, vivid colours, almost blinding his fragile mind's eye. He sees his office, the pale blues and whites of the walls unnaturally bright, the steel shelving unnaturally shiny, the framed butterflies unnaturally vivid, jumping out at him as though they were alive. He sees Sara stood in the doorway, leaning against the doorpost. For a fleeting moment, he thinks of how he'd love to press her up against the doorpost and take her there and then. Then he remembers why she stands there, and what she would say next.
"Would you like to have dinner with me?"
"No."
"Why not? Let's... let's have dinner. Let's see what happens."
"Sara..." he says, ever so slightly flustered. "I don't know what to do about this."
"I do." She tells him. "You know, by the time you figure it out, you really could be too late."
Her words ring out in his ears, almost as if she were stood over him repeating them over, and over, and over again. Her words jolt him awake and he lifts his head with the shock, groaning and wincing as the white hot pokers return to torture him. He hears a noise. An abnormally loud creak of the door hinges, a scuffling of shoes on the doormat, muffled curses and the rustling of a paper grocery sack. The door to the main room creaks open, louder than the one he heard before, and he cringes as the screech of the old metal hinges sends a chainsaw through his throbbing head. He hears a voice, a familiar voice, and for a second he almost smiles despite the pain because he recognises the voice, the voice in his dreams, the voice belonging to the one person he needs right now, the one person he can't have. The almost-smile turns to a scowl and he tries to lift his head, flailing his arms out in a vain attempt to send her away.
"Catherine said you had a migraine… I brought you some soup and some juice, in case you wanted to eat…"
"Go… I don't… you can't be here… see me… no…"
His words come out jumbled as he tries to send her away in the only way he knows how – to shut himself off from her and the rest of the world. He senses a matching scowl on her face, and through the maze of spots before his eyes, he pictures her standing with her hands on her hips and her eyes narrowed.
"I am not leaving. Not until you tell me what's going on here."
He groans as her voice reaches his ears, the pain in his head making it sound much louder. The bile rises in his throat and he struggles to pull himself up into a sitting position, then standing, before he stumbles through the living room and falls through the door of the bathroom. He slams to his knees on the tiled floor, his head falling over the porcelain bowl as he reacquaints himself with all he's eaten that day.
His chest rises and falls rapidly as the water flows from the silver tap. Her dark dress pants and smart, low-heeled boots are all he can see of her as she wets a washcloth with cold water, before she folds it and wipes his mouth. Unfolding and refolding it, she presses it to his forehead, wiping away the beads of sweat that have accumulated as he vomited. He rolls his head to the side and his cheek falls against the cool porcelain of the bathtub. He closes his eyes and watches the spots dance, twisting and turning this way and that.
"You should go to bed… get some sleep…"
She sounds far away, though in reality she is crouched in front of him, one hand holding the washcloth to his head and the other gripping the fingers of one of his own. His skin is cold and clammy and his hands tremble. He lurches forward and hangs himself over the toilet once more, emptying the rest of the contents of his stomach until he heaves dry, painful heaves.
Before he has a chance to roll his head back to its previous position resting against the bathtub, she has her arms around his chest, tugging gently to pull him into a standing position. She hears his knees crack and winces to herself – he'll regret that tomorrow.
The room spins as he raises himself to his feet, allowing himself to be guided down the short hall to his bedroom. He wants to protest; he doesn't want her to see him like this: vulnerable, weak.
"You… go… have to… can't be here…" he whispers words of objection to her presence, though they prove to be fruitless as she shakes her head.
"No. I'm staying until you're settled." She tells him firmly.
Moments later, though it seems to him like hours, he's wearing a pair of old jogging bottoms and a t-shirt and he's lying in his bed, the wet washcloth over his face. She's closing the blinds to block out any trace of the blazing sun, rising higher and higher in the clear blue sky as the day wears on. Certain he's settled and as comfortable as he can be, she sighs and lets her arms drop resignedly to her sides as she walks over to the side of his bed.
"I have to go back to work… I'm in the middle of a double. You rest, okay?" she tells him quietly, before leaving the room silently. She pulls the door closed and he hears a soft click, an even softer one as she lets herself out of the house. His shoulders shake slightly and he sucks in a gulp of air, his heart pounding wildly against his ribs. The rational scientist in him is telling him that, although dizzy, he won't faint. His brain has only sent panic signals to release adrenaline, to make his heart pump faster to send more oxygen to his body, because his brain can't decipher between different types of panic. The rational scientist in him is saying that he won't faint, because fainting is a response to a lack of oxygen, and because of his increasing heart rate and hyperventilation, he has more than enough oxygen. The simple man, however, is lying terrified on his bed as salty tears run from his eyes and fall onto the crisp white sheets, marring the innocence with fear.
'Perhaps,' he thinks, as he tries to bring his erratic breathing under control, 'Perhaps I've blown it. Blown any chance of anything with her. Perhaps, one day, I'll learn to let bygones be bygones and leave the past where it belongs. Perhaps, one day…'
As slumber becomes him once more, a flicker of hope shines in the distant future, a flicker barely visible, a whisper barely audible, but a flicker and a whisper nonetheless. For now though, he lies - sleeping, tossing and turning restlessly, and all he can think of is how he danced around a flame and once again, got burned.
"Sara?"
"Can it wait, Catherine? I'm off."
"You? Going home at shift-end?"
She smirks. "First time for everything," She retorts dryly. "Shift ended twenty minutes ago, actually. And I'm off. I'm sure whatever it is can wait 'til tonight." She turns on her heel, leaving her blonde-haired colleague gawping after her.
.x.x.x.
She locates his spare key in the plastic box moulded to the underside of the plant pot beside the front step. She lets herself into his house, guiltily tiptoeing down the hallway. The paper sack she brought by earlier is untouched on the kitchen counter and the only sounds breaking the silence are her boots slapping against the hard wooden floor and the low rumble of his heavy breathing as he sleeps.
Stepping over to his overflowing bookshelves, she winces as the sound of her boots on the floor echoes throughout the room, reverberating off the walls and floor, highlighted by the eerie stillness. She plucks the latest Forensic Journal from a pile atop the highest shelf and heads slowly towards his sofa, shuffling so as not to wake him with the echoing sound of shoes on wood.
She sits back on the sofa, wriggling into the corner in attempt to make herself comfortable on the firm leather cushion. She opens the journal on her lap and soon forgets where she is, reading about latest advances in DNA analysis. A grumble wakes her from her own world and she looks up. He stands in the doorway to his bedroom, his pyjamas rumpled and his hair matted from tossing and turning in his sleep. His glasses hang slightly crooked on his nose and he blinks rapidly, trying to recall the events of the last few hours. After opening his mouth once or twice, he finally manages to croak a sentence.
"What are you doing here?"
His voice is hoarse, his throat raw from the vomiting earlier. She smiles weakly and stands from the couch, grateful to be able to stretch her legs and relieve her aching muscles which were beginning to cramp after being curled in the uncomfortable corner. She grabs a glass from the cupboard and fills it with cold water from the tap. She hands it to him and he sits in his favourite chair as she talks.
"You came home early… you had a migraine. I came by earlier with soup and juice, but you vomited, so I made sure you got to your bed and went back to work… I came back about a half hour ago to see how you were…"
Swallowing a mouthful of water, he sighs heavily and slumps back in his seat.
"You shouldn't have come by."
"I was worried about you. That's what friends do, right?"
"We're 'friends'?"
She rolls her eyes impatiently and purses her lips, silently counting to ten to try and calm herself.
"Yeah, Grissom. We're friends. Or at least, we were until you suddenly decided you didn't want to know me."
He raises a tired eyebrow. "I never said that."
"You didn't have to," She retorts angrily, her body trembling as she breathes deeply to try and dispel her anger.
"Look, Sara, I don't know what…"
"No. Don't try and tell me you don't know what to do about this. 'THIS' has waited too long. 'THIS' is moving on now."
"I don't know what happened, but…"
"Save it, Grissom. Save it for someone who cares, okay? I can't take anymore of this hot-cold thing. I've tried so hard with this and you keep sending mixed signals and… I can't do it anymore. I won't do it."
"I…"
"Just forget it, Grissom."
She turns on her heel, pausing to pick up her purse from beside the sofa, before stalking out of the door, her head held high until she reaches her Tahoe, where the tears begin to fall.
He groans as the door slams behind her. Gone. She's no longer in his house, she's not standing in front of him anymore, she's not yelling at him, frustrated, angry, even a little upset. She's not sighing exasperatedly between sentences anymore, and for a minute, the silence is deafening.
There's a ringing in his ears, a constant, high pitched screech highlighted by the sound of her car engine starting up and driving away. The only remainder of her short presence is the brown paper sack carrying soup and juice sitting on the kitchen counter.
He glances up at the offending item, a glare present, his eyes wide, darkening with anger and just a hint of sadness and frustration. He imagines that this is how Sara must feel so often, when he makes an ambiguous comment and brushes it off. When he leaves abruptly. When he brings her to the brink of a breakdown, pushes her towards alcohol, culminating in a DUI on her record and a humiliating experience on both parties when he arrives at the police station to take her home.
He finally realises what it's like to be on the other side. He wants to scream and shout and stamp his feet like a toddler who's been told 'no'. He wants to yell and curse like an obnoxious adolescent. He wants to curl up in a ball under his bed like a scared child during a thunderstorm.
For a moment he considers the three actions, tapping his foot on the floor, cursing inwardly, hunching his shoulders and scrunching his eyes tight, screwing up his face. It's almost like he's throwing a tantrum on a smaller scale.
He wants more than anything to let the walls crumble, to let the façade break away, to be vulnerable. He berates himself for judging people too quickly, for being so weary of mankind, for being so distrusting. He hears her voice in his head, over and over, taunting him, reminding him of how much he wants to scream and shout.
"Save it for someone who cares…"
"Save it…"
"Someone who cares…"
He's confused. His first assumption is that she doesn't care, and he isn't surprised. He doesn't think he would care if the tables were turned and he was in her shoes. His head pounds, a steady throbbing between the eyes, slowly accompanied by an increasingly painful stabbing on either side of his skull. His migraine returns with a vengeance. He almost thinks it has come back to laugh at him for being such a cantankerous bastard, too stubborn to back down and let people care.
His right hand unconsciously moves to rub his temple, attempting in vain to relieve the stress and pressure.
He leans forward and drops the glass on the floor as he rests his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees. The glass shatters and tiny clear shards jump across the floor, glistening in the early morning sunlight. He curses loudly at the demise of the glass and at his own stubbornness. For a fleeting moment he wishes he could be more like Nick, laid back, easy going. He wishes he could accept that people care about him and let them care; he wishes he could escape his intense need to not be vulnerable.
Alone now, as the sun rises higher and higher in the sky, beating down through the window onto the back of his head, he stares, hypnotised, at the splinters of glass on the floor.
He feels vulnerable.
For the first time in his adult life, he sees the walls he's built around himself crumble. The façade drops and tears fall. He cries, salty drops falling onto his hands, splashing onto the floor between pieces of glass.
Tears cascade down her face as she twists the key in the ignition and starts the engine. Clamping her foot down on the accelerator, she twists the steering wheel and starts off on her way home, feeling both physically and emotionally exhausted.