Title: Scenes from a Memory
Author: spanky743
Rating: Teen
Pairing: GSR, emphasis on the R
Spoilers: Early Season 5, and Meet Market
Disclaimer: I don't own CSI, nor do I profit in any way from this fic. So there.
A/N: Many thanks to Liz00 for the beta.
"Who doesn't want to be swept off their feet?"
"I'm not sure it's something that I want to pay for."
"Yeah, but you don't want to spend your whole life waiting for it, either. Right here, right now a woman
can have a relationship with a man who only wants to please her - Who can make her laugh, wipe away
her tears, give her the confidence to be herself."
-Jesse Hottman and Sara Sidle, Meet Market
I. Spend Your Whole Life Waiting for It
He reached across the table and took her hand.
"I know what I want, and I'm ready - if you'll still have me..."
She thought of her first boyfriend, her first year at Harvard, and how he dumped her for the blond with perfect teeth and larger breasts; of her first serious relationship in college and the purple panties that belonged to his sister; of Ken Fuller and the check mark beside her name on his ongoing list of sexual conquests; of Hank and his long-time girlfriend.
She grinned.
II. A Man Who Only Wants to Please Her
"What kind of flowers do you like?"
"I don't like flowers, I like plants. You know that."
"What about jewelry?"
"What about it?" She replied with a smirk. Where exactly was he going with this?
"Do you prefer yellow gold, or white gold, or platinum, or necklaces, or bracelets, or ri-"
"Griss, how many pieces of jewelry do I own? I mean real jewelry that actually costs money." This was getting amusing.
"I can get you more if you want..." His voice trailed off
"No, but thanks for the offer."
"Chocolate?"
Her only answer was the raise of a brow. Silence filled the bedroom, until Sara realized what his intentions may have been. She raised herself up on one elbow and placed her other hand on his chest, forcing him to look up at her.
"Gil, why are you asking me these things?"
Grissom sighed, sat up, and held her in his arms.
"Sara, we can't go out together within the city," he began, "You have to lie to your friends any time they invite you to do something after shift."
"I don't lie, per se," she interrupted.
"You lie." He kissed her forehead. "I can't tell Jim how I've been happier these past three months with you than I've ever been in my life. And I'd ask you to stop paying rent on that oversized storage unit and just move in here officially, but we both know that with work it's a logistical impossibility. Eventually you'll get tired of all the secrecy, of staying in every day, of not even being able to go to the grocery store as a couple.
"Honey, I want nothing more than to make you happy. Tell me what to do and I'll do it. I just don't want you to feel like you're my dirty little secret."
Sara turned her body to look him in the eye.
"I don't need any gifts or grand gestures. If you want to give them that's fine, but it's not necessary to keep me happy. All I need is this right here: you holding me and me holding you, you trusting me and me trusting you, you caring for me and allowing me to care for you. We can deal with the team and the lab later, when things get to the point where we can't keep it a secret, but right now I couldn't be any happier. Okay?"
He gave her that look again; the one that was showing up nearly every day during their most intimate moments. Sara prepared herself. "This is it. He's going to say it."
"Okay," he said.
III. Who Can Make Her Laugh
Caro mio ben, credimi almen...
Sara could not believe the sounds that were coming out of the bathroom.
Senza di te, languisce el cor...
It was horribly out of tune, garnished with the whitest Italian accent she had ever heard.
She had not known what to expect when she came to Grissom's townhouse unannounced. Granted, he had given her a key with instructions to "come any time, my home is yours," and she had let herself in on many occasions in the last four months, but she didn't know if she was overstepping by not calling first. Sara had planned to return to her own apartment after shift, but halfway there she started missing him and turned the car around. When she entered and heard the shower running she immediately felt uncomfortable intruding on such a private moment. Sara was ready to leave and pretend she was never there, but then the singing had started.
Il tou fedel, sospira ognor, cessa crudel
Was it supposed to be some sort of aria? She couldn't tell. His voice began to climb higher and higher, and as she moved closer to the master bath she could no longer contain her giggles.
Tanto rigor
Tanto rigoooor!
Sara's giggles had turned to chuckles and were now a full-blown cackle that had her bent over.
And the water shut off.
"Sara, is that you?"
"Y-yes," she replied, trying to catch her breath.
The door of the shower opened and a wet Grissom stepped out, in all his glory.
"I was just thinking about you - what's so funny?" He started to dry off.
"Were you singing an aria?"
Grissom shrugged sheepishly, "Guiseppe Giordiano...I like singing in the shower."
His nonchalance toward the entire situation warmed Sara's heart.
"It just surprised me, that's all. What does it mean?"
He quoted, "'Thou, all my bliss, believe but this: When thou art far my heart is lorn'...I missed you"
What could she do but kiss his cheek and laugh some more?
IV. Wipe Away Her Tears
The townhouse was bathed in darkness with a few city lights twinkling through the blinds.
"I just don't understand these people; any of them. How can you grow and sell drugs with two children in the house? Sooner or later they figure it out. Their son did, and the knowledge cost him his life.
"And then those boys. What kinds of parents are raising monsters like this? They shot and killed a whole family, spent hours with the bodies trying to dispose of them - with Cassie there the entire time - and then slit the throat of an innocent little girl. It was insane."
Grissom simply held her on the couch while she spoke of the case she worked while he was out of town. He knew from experience that it was a listening ear Sara needed, not empty platitudes or you-did-the-best-you-could's.
"The whole time I was trying to hold it together for Nick - he's been through so much lately, and he was really taking this case hard - but all I wanted to do was curl up and cry. That, or punch someone in the face."
Grissom gave a soft chuckle of understanding and held her tighter.
"I needed you," Sara whispered.
"I'm here now."
The house fell silent once again as Sara reflected. All of a sudden, the emotional weight of the past few days caught up with her. The shedding of a few tears soon turned into a full sob.
Grissom never said a word, and never let go.
He finally moved when she began to only sniffle. He got up from his place on the couch and knelt down on the floor before her. He began to slowly kiss away the remnants of tears from her cheeks, followed by two kisses on her closed eyelids, then her forehead, and finally a chaste kiss on her lips.
He quickly went to the hall bathroom and brought back a box of tissues. Sara cleaned up then stood up to look Grissom in the eyes.
"Thank you."
He nodded, took her hand, and led her to bed where she slept a dreamless sleep.
V. Give Her the Confidence to Be Herself
Sara stood in front of the bathroom mirror, halting her usual pre-shift routine to look at her herself. All of her imperfections were visible to her.
There was the faint scar on her right collar bone, a reminder of the time she "fell playing hopscotch" when she was ten. Another was on her left knee; she broke her leg while "jumping on the trampoline" the nurses had no way of knowing she didn't own.
Her hair never quite did what it was supposed to, her waist was one size larger than she'd like, and no matter how many crunches she did her belly would never get quite flat enough.
She was wearing a bra and panties, but underneath lay the fact that her right breast was half a cup size smaller than the left.
And then there was the gap. Even before she was the girl whose father got stabbed to death, before she was the lanky girl with greasy hair and smelly clothes, before she was the teacher's pet the other kids loved to hate, she was the girl with the big gap. At first it made her cute, but that ended when people realized that eight was a bit too old to have just lost that baby tooth. In middle school they called her Gappy. By high school they just stopped calling.
"What in the world is Grissom doing with me?" She thought.
He could have had any woman he wanted. Every female lab employee thought he was attractive; witnesses and suspects alike practically threw themselves at him; he probably could have had Catherine, if she had a taste for decent men. And, if the rumors were true, even the city's top dominatrix wanted him.
And of course, there was Sofia Curtis. Just months before, Sara had been ready to give up and let her have him. She was shamelessly flirting with him and, unlike with all the other women in the past, Grissom had flirted back. Sofia was perfect in all of the ways Sara was not, and had the brains too. Sara could not, for the life of her, figure out what made Grissom choose her over Sofia or all the other women around him.
A voice from the doorway tore her from her reverie.
"'All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you'," He quoted.
And she believed him.
--