A/N: A post-ep for "Snakes" that's also a response to csipal's challenge on YTDAW. 1000 words. The elements include the following: Include this in a G/S conversation: "Tell me how you do it?" "Do what?" "Stop loving someone.", a rusty bottle cap, super glue, a stack of overdue bills, and this sentence: No matter how hard she had looked, she never found the rules to this game that they were playing.
Yeah, if you've read my other stuff, you'll know that my biggest challenge was the 1000-word limit.
Spoilers: "Snakes" (not too bad, though)
Disclaimer: snorts Yeah, right, like I own CSI:.
The Ripple Effect
Sara sighed as she approached the stairs to her apartment, though she was unsure of the exact emotion behind the sound. Resignation? Frustration? Relief? Maybe some combination of any or all of those? Her conversation with Grissom had been incredibly liberating. But it hadn't been easy.
While her relationship with Grissom was only one of her problems, it was a large one. No matter how hard she had looked, she never found the rules to this game that they were playing. So she gave up, let it go, all in the hopes of reclaiming her independence, of recapturing herself. And it had worked. She had regained control of her life but, in order to do it, she'd been forced to sacrifice her heart. So she decided to cut herself some slack for not really knowing how she felt at the moment.
Work had been disappointingly uneventful. Not that she wished harm on anyone, but an interesting case would have been a welcome distraction. And home, of course, was no more enticing. All that waited for her here was a stack of overdue bills and the unappealing offerings of daytime television.
She fumbled with her keys as she trudged up the stairs slowly and, when she finally found the one that would unlock her apartment, she looked up.
And came face to face with the man who was never far from her thoughts. "Grissom…" she breathed.
He pushed himself away from the wall and, though they stood in a covered hallway, she imagined that the sun reflecting off the steely blue of his eyes would be blinding. She squinted a little in response to the vision.
"I think we need to talk," he said, and his voice resembled a quiet brook in an isolated forest. She closed her eyes for a second as she came to terms with the fact that she might never be over him. But just for a second. Because then she drew herself up straighter, nodded, and turned the key in the lock, her hand steadier than she expected.
She led the way in, walking to the kitchen with a confidence she didn't know she possessed, dropping her purse and keys on the counter along the way. "Something to drink?" she asked him, casually tossing the words over her shoulder as she opened the refrigerator and peered inside. "I've got water, milk, Coke. Or I could make some tea," she added as an afterthought.
He shrugged. "Whatever you've got."
When she looked at him with a raised eyebrow and an irritated glare, he held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. "Water's fine."
She lobbed the bottle to him softly and took a long swig from her own before closing the refrigerator door with her hip and striding purposefully across the room. When she opened the door to the deck, she looked at him expectantly, and he lowered his head and followed.
The canvas chair was more comfortable than he would have thought, and he idly rubbed the neck of his water bottle as he stared at the rusty bottle cap on the wooden deck. Sara followed his intent gaze and chuckled. "I super-glued that there a couple of months ago. It's from the first beer I had after I finished counseling."
When he turned that cobalt blueness on her, she sighed and told him, "It was also the last one I had, Grissom. I know my limitations." She took a long drink of water, ignoring his scrutiny as she watched a young mother and her toddler in the playground below.
His hushed query sliced into the stillness. "Tell me how you do it?"
"Do what?"
"Stop loving someone."
She turned to look at him with eyes narrowed into lasers. She expected him to look away from her searing gaze, to change the subject, to laugh. Anything but what he did.
Which was look back. Openly. Honestly. Vulnerably. Something in his eyes had changed. He was different now, though she wasn't sure why or for how long. But it seemed a fundamental change, and she thought for some reason of the ripple effect.
And she took a chance. "I wouldn't know. I've never stopped."
She watched the effect as the stone of her words splashed into his eyes and, at long last, acceptance of her love settled there. And then the tiny circles moved outward to his mouth, causing the corners to tweak upward. And she didn't mind when his eyes eventually left hers because they only strayed to watch the last of the ripples when his hand reached to encircle hers. "Neither have I."
Sara couldn't remember the equations for determining how one set of ripples affected another, but she knew that she and Grissom could figure it out together. They were scientists, after all.
She sighed as he intertwined his fingers with hers. And this time she knew the emotion behind the sound.