In Pieces
The first time she left, it wasn´t so bad.
He knew she had to leave, not because of him, but because of herself. Of course he was hurt back then. He was in shock. He missed her. But she´d left him a letter. And he could hold onto that. He could read it every night and know that she loved him. He could talk to her on the phone and know that she missed him.
He had hope that she would come home at some point. Because she hadn´t left him, she´d left Las Vegas, she´d left her job. He was conscious of the difference and that made it more bearable for him to be separated from her.
Warrick died and Sara came back.
It wasn´t the way either of them had planned. It was unexpected, it was tragic, but he´d never felt more relieved than when he saw her standing in his office that day.
He was in pain and she was there and that made their loss bearable for him. She was the only thing that kept him from breaking down completely.
"Why don´t you stay?"
"I can´t stay here."
He felt like she´d punched him in the stomach.
When she left the second time, she didn´t say goodbye. She didn´t leave a note.
He came home and she was gone and that´s when he knew that she´d actually left him. Not Vegas, not her work. She´d left him and deep down he knew that his words had made her leave.
"Maybe he needed her to leave him."
He told himself he´d said it in relation to the case. And she´d taken it personal, the way she always did.
But he knew it wasn´t true.
Fact was, he was angry.
He was angry at her for leaving him in the first place. For making him miss her. For coming back and showing him how much he really needed her, just to tell him she would be leaving again.
He was angry because she didn´t seem to realize that he would do anything for her, but that he just couldn´t leave. Not right now. Had it been any other time, had Warrick not died, he would have packed his bags and gone with her when she´d asked him. But now he couldn´t.
Because his team needed him. Because his family needed him.
He had to stay because they wouldn´t be able to bear another loss in such a short span of time.
Didn´t she get that?
He hadn´t said those things to drive her away. He´d said them because he was angry for all those reasons and he wanted her to see how much she´d hurt him, wanted her to realize what it did to him to be separated from her.
But he´d forgotten how good they were at miscommunicating and so, through his words, he´d driven her away.
So the second time she left, the hope in him, that she would return home again eventually, died.
The first few weeks after Sara had gone were pure torture for Grissom. He knew how to live without her. He knew how to deal with missing her. But he didn´t know how to deal with losing her. He didn´t know how to go on without hope.
He had forgotten how to ease the pain of knowing he would stay alone. He had forgotten how to be in denial.
But he tried. He tried to deny his pain. He tried to learn how to live without hope again.
He had lived like that for years before she came into his life, so why shouldn´t he be able to live like that again now?
Yet he knew this was different. Because now he knew what it was like not to be alone. He knew what it felt like when you loved someone so much you would kill for them.
He´d gotten used to having someone to talk to. He´d gotten used to being happy.
And so, those first few weeks after her departure he wasn´t able to stop his heart from aching constantly and to stop his thoughts from drifting to Sara. He wasn´t able to distance himself from his feelings, to distract himself from the constant pain.
At work he saw the pained faces of his friends and co-workers, still grieving over Warrick´s death. He couldn´t put his additional pain on them and he couldn´t take theirs. So, he started to distance himself from the only people he´d left.
He had been alone before. He could deal with that.
But now he was lonely and the pain started to eat away at him.
He didn´t know how he ended up where he was now, but for the first time in weeks his heart stopped bleeding. He went numb. And that was a relief.
And so he continued to visit Heather, almost every day. Because, with her around he didn´t feel the pain anymore. Because, with her around he was distracted. Because he knew that, with Heather, it wasn´t complicated. It was simple. She comforted him and he comforted her. And that was that.
"Gil, I know we don´t talk about it…"
"About what?"
"Her."
He stiffened in his chair. The dull, painful throbbing of his heart started again.
"It´s time." Heather´voice was gentle, sympathetic.
He didn´t answer, just turned his head away. He wanted her to stop talking. He was in his place of solace…she couldn´t take that away from him. She shouldn´t take that away from him.
"You need to go after her."
"She doesn´t want me to." He brought out between clenched teeth. Don´t think about it, don´t think about it…
"How do you know?"
He stayed silent. What was he supposed to say?
"I think you are just afraid. You are afraid that she has started a new life without you. That she isn´t missing you the way you are missing her. You are afraid to apologize. But Gil…you can´t go on like this."
Even though he tried not to hear her, her words reached him. The pain became unbearable.
"I´m fine." He whispered, angrily.
"You are so not fine." Heather sighed. "You can go on like this if you want to. Denying your feelings, pushing your friends away, coming here to numb your pain. That´s the easy way out. That´what you would have done years ago. But you know what? You´ve changed. She´s changed you. You´ll never be able to live like that again. The life you are leading right now is killing you. I´ve seen enough men broken by love, I know what I´m talking about. And if you don´t go now, if you don´t try to make it right again, you are going to regret it for the rest of your life."
Her words stirred something in him, but he refused to think about them.
"Gil, you have wallowed in your self-pity long enough. It´s time."
With that she left him.
He´d taken a few days to think about what she´d said and then he´d packed his back, brought Hank over to Nick´s place and took the first flight out to San Francisco, hoping she would still be there.
It took him three days to find her apartment, a small loft in the suburbs of the city. It took him five hours and twenty-three minutes to find the courage to knock on her door.
When she finally stood in the doorway it took him two seconds to realize that it had been his biggest mistake to not go after her the day she´d left.
He knew it would take him a lifetime to show her how much she really meant to him, but he also knew that he had to try, because living without was not an option anymore.