Paris Calling

Author wobbear
Rating General/K
Pairing Grissom/Sara
Disclaimer Characters borrowed for fun, not profit.
Spoilers Set after 10 X 06 Death and the Maiden.
Author's note At the end.

Friday, November 6th, 2009

"Hi, I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

"No … well, yeah, but I've been hunched over the layout table it seems like forever and I need a break. I'm glad you called." Sara's ability to focus intently on a task was a great thing, but she also had to remember to take care of herself. She'd been doing a lot better in recent times, especially since Gil had come to her in Costa Rica, but occasionally she still needed to step back and just let herself relax, breathe. Gil's call was a salutary reminder. Plus, of course, it was great to hear from him. It had been a couple of days since they last spoke.

"So, you're in the lab?" Gil sounded pleased, and she understood. If she were out in the field, in the thick of processing a scene, it could be a lot harder to take time out for a personal call.

"Yeah, had a quintuple murder last night and I've been sorting through the evidence, sending stuff to Hodges, DNA, you know the drill, since the start of shift." Sara straightened up and stretched, kneading the small of her back with her free hand.

She looked at the phone's screen, checking the time: 3:30 am, lunchtime in Paris. "So, what're you doing? Have you eaten yet?"

"I--what? No." He sounded confused.

"It's 12:30 in Paris, like a good pseudo Frenchman you should be thinking about your stomach."

"Mais oui," he laughed. "Well, I'm thinking Moules Frites and a Belgian beer."

Sara grinned. It had become a favorite in Paris; they often shared a big bowl of the steamed mussels for lunch. Gil ate the lion's share of the mollusks, but she loved soaking up the cooking soup with hunks of delicious baguette and they frequently found themselves fighting over the last of the French fries. While Gil's taste in beer tended to the 'white' beers, she'd had fun trying more unusual ones, like those made with raspberries and black currants.

"That's mean. You've got me salivating over evidence now," Sara grumbled good-naturedly.

"Keep your mouth closed, you don't want to contaminate the evidence," Gil teased.

Although he couldn't see her, Sara pursed her lips, pouting in her best French fashion at the phone.

"So, how's the city of light?"

"Ah … a bit dull without you." He rushed on, evidently not wanting to sound needy. "Since the clocks went back it gets dark early and now I've gotten used to day-walking again I've realized how much I like the sunlight. Um … how did you find it switching back to living in the dark?"

"Honestly?" It was a rhetorical question; their pact to be true to each other was holding strong for the most part, though Sara wondered a little about Gil's last words. He sounded like he was withholding and she would quiz him on that soon, but for now Sara was searching for how to answer.

His murmured "Mmm-hmm" spurred her on, and Sara realized what she wanted to say, "Frankly, I'm surprised at how easy it's been. I had enough time away, enough distance and my mind-set is totally different to when I left. Thanks in no small part to you. I've been welcomed, I feel needed, and I'm doing something worthwhile. The work engages me and I'm used to doing it at night, so I don't really think about that part of it."

"And this time you're going to have regular breaks." 'With me' was the unspoken sub-text. "Come to Paris at the end of the month, the Christmas lights will be up on the Champs Elysées."

"That's a great idea," Sara nodded, thinking. "I'll tell Catherine, and go online for a flight after work today."

"Good."

It was amazing how much pleasure he could convey in that single syllable. Sara sighed a little wistfully. Suddenly the end of November couldn't come soon enough. "So … what have you been doing since we last spoke? You're not getting the swine flu, are you?" When she called him a few days ago, he had been at the tail end of helping out with the supervision of mid-term exams at the Sorbonne – H1N1 having taken its toll among the full-time academic staff and part-time helpers who could usually be called on.

"The exams are over, I'm healthy and I've got a large pile of papers to mark." Gil sounded more enthusiastic than he'd ever been about CSI paperwork, but that was hardly surprising. He was a born teacher, and liked seeing how far his students had progressed.

She paused, thinking about how different it was for her this time around in Las Vegas. There was only one real problem she had in working at CSI again. Even though Gil was definite about never wanting to go back there, she was sure that at least part of it was because of his determination to show her how he'd changed, leaving that all-consuming work commitment behind and was now fully committed to their union.

There was an unfillable void. She wanted him to know that. "I have to say this: you are missed here, and not only by me."

Gil didn't reply immediately, and Sara decided to give him a moment.

One of her vics from last night was found wrapped in a 500-count Egyptian cotton sheet and just before Gil's call Sara had spread it out over the layout table. Sara looked down at the taupe-colored sheet, and walked over to the light switch, flipping it off. Enough illumination came through the glass wall that she could still see enough to pick up a UV light and a pair of orange viewing goggles.

"You're supposed to be having a break and talking to me, Mrs Grissom."

Sara jumped. There was suddenly a strange echo, Gil's voice coming from the phone … and the doorway.

"You sneaky …" Sara decided that talking was over-rated and hurried into the arms of her grinning husband.

After a suitable pause for hugs and kisses, she pulled back a little, pretending to frown at him. "But why didn't you tell me you were coming?!"

"Then it wouldn't have been such a surprise, n'est-ce pas?"

FIN

Author's note I'd had a vague idea for a fic of this title (it's a great song by Daniel Lavoie), but with Grissom in Paris and it was going to be a bit gloomy. Then I saw that Billy Petersen visited the CSI set last Friday, and after I ate moules for lunch on Saturday, fact met fanfiction and I came up with (gasps of surprise) fluff.