Title: Simple as a Snail
Author: Maggienhawk
Disclaimer: I own CSI just as much as I own my own beach house…wait I'm a poor college student living in a dorm for the summer. I own neither.
Summary: Sara goes back to her favorite childhood spot, and relates to an unusual animal. GSRish.
A/N: It's been over a month since I've been able to write anything. I'm working full time, and when I get home I want to write, but have been going through the worst case of writer's block ever. A Turning Point is slowly coming along, but this is something to hopefully jump start my muse. It was written while I was sitting on a rock at the shore…I love the ocean. Thanks to AmbientFlames simply because she's a great friend, even when I'm not doing what she wants me to do (which to her alter ego SlaveDriver is me writing).
This is the most peaceful place I know, my favorite spot in the world. Sitting on a rock, looking out over the tide coming in. Far in the distance, I can see a group of white masts and can only imagine what it feels like to be out on the water, with only the wind directing me where to go. Right in front of me is where the waves are breaking, and there are thousands of snails not budging under the pressure. They're strong, not allowing nature to take its course. They've acclimated to their environment after nature tossed them among the waves and deposited them in the most physically stressful environment possible. I know for a fact that about three miles down the coastline is a small cove, where the waves don't break as hard. To the little snails in front of me, they can only dream of a spot like that, where they don't have to spend all the time worrying about getting washed away with the water. And sitting here right now, I realize that I feel like one of these snails, stuck for a lifetime in a stressful environment.
Three days ago, Grissom was at my doorstep, telling me he had finally figured it all out. I, on the other hand, had finally started to figure out a life without Grissom, and I told him just that. I didn't want to be that girl anymore, the one that dropped everything the second he noticed me. I had to figure myself out before I could even think of starting a relationship with him. So the next day, I left, with nothing but a quick, professional phone call, requesting some vacation time. He, surprisingly, tried to turn it into a personal call, asking if everything was all right, and I could tell he really meant it. I told him everything was fine, thanked him and quickly hung up the phone before he could say another word. I packed a bag of clothes and hopped in my car, driving all the way here, stopping only twice along the way.
I used to sit here as a kid, far enough away from the yelling and the fighting. Yet still close enough that my parents could see me and I wouldn't get in trouble for wandering off. I used to amble about the rocks, just observing and taking everything in. When I was five, I wanted to be a marine biologist and learn how the snails on the rocks could stay in one spot as the waves pummeled them. When I was ten, a marine biologist came into my class and I asked her how they could stay where they were. She answered that it was because of physics, not just biology that kept them there. So until I was thirteen, I wanted to grow up and combine the two.
Of course, things never work out as planned. After my father died and my mother went away, I didn't want anything to do with the ocean, simply because it reminded me too much of the times that I was ignorant to how bad things really were. So, I revised my lifelong plan. Screw biology, I was going to be a physicist, and none of it was going to involve those damn resilient snails. I went to Harvard, got my degree in theoretical physics, but wouldn't you know it? Those snails never left the back of my mind. Then I met Grissom.
I forgot about the snails when I met him, and filled my mind completely with bugs, guns and bodies. He brought me into the career I have now, and I let it consume my life. I tried for the life of me to bring justice to people in similar situations as my own, hoping that no one ever had to go through what I went through as a child. But, you know what? I've finally realized that there are always going to be people out there who hurt the ones they love, people that lie, cheat, steal and kill and I can't change that. I can only try my best to help those that I am paid to help.
Grissom changed my life, in that for a long time he represented happiness to me. Not that if I was to be with him now, I wouldn't be happy, because I think that I could be. But sitting here, right now, I realized that I've turned into one of these snails, stuck in one place, neither dying nor getting washed away by the waves that come in with the tide. I've been stuck under Grissom's hold for years now, his actions and words acting as a strong wave force that gives me life, compelling me to stay exactly where I am. If I move farther away from the waves, I'll die from being away from it; if I move closer, the force is stronger, and as much as I desperately want to get washed away in everything that is Grissom, it is much more dangerous than it looks. We have so much power to hurt each other, that moving towards the waves could be devastating.
But the more I sit here, the more I realize that I am not a snail; that I can get up and walk down to the protected cove where the waves aren't so dangerous. I can choose how I want Grissom's love, because in the cove, I have less of a chance of it hurting me. I could move much more freely in the cove, because all of my life wouldn't be consumed with keeping myself grounded. It was his love that put me in this position, just as it was the ocean that dropped the snail here when they were young, but unlike them I have a choice. And right now, the cove is looking better and better as the tide rolls in, the waves crashing harder and harder on the rocks.
We'll figure out a way that he can't hurt me as much, so that he won't have such a hold on me. But before that, I think I'll go home and read up on how these snails manage to stay here. Maybe I'll understand how I managed to stay in this position for so long, and the transition to the cove won't be as hard for the both of us.
For now though, I'll just enjoy the sun and the sounds, and remember exactly why I used to come out here when things got rough. I can see down the shore to my old house, but for once I feel content sitting here. Even though I ran here from Vegas and Grissom and everything else in my life right now, for once I don't feel as if I'm running at all. Right in this moment, everything seems as simple as the lives of the snails slowly crawling about on the rocks in front of me.