Disclaimer: Characters contained within do not belong to me.

Author's Notes: You ever have a story that gets in your head and it just won't go away. This was one of them. I wanted to get it out before the premiere. I apologize for having to put it out in pieces. I hope you'll enjoy it anyway;)

Time in a Bottle

by Kristen Elizabeth

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. – Gilda Radner

The phone call came in the middle of dinner. She reached it first, being quicker on her feet, but the person on the other end wanted to speak to me.

I took the receiver and an inexplicable chill ran down my spine. "This is Gil Grissom," I said quietly.

"Gil." I recognized the voice right away. I heard it every Saturday morning at ten sharp, but she'd never called us at home. "She's awake."

My stomach churned; chicken and peas threatened to rise up in my throat. I always thought that when…or if I heard those words, I would leap to my feet and run to Sara's side, needing to see her…desperate for our lives to go on. But when the moment arrived, I found myself frozen in my seat, unable to move.

Because what did you say to a woman who'd been asleep for eight years?

There are some days you want to live over and over again. Birthdays, weddings, vacations, graduations…days you wish could have lasted forever.

I never had any of those days until I met Sara Sidle.

What would I go back and live over? The day we met was memorable, but I was so annoyed to find myself attracted to such a young woman that I couldn't even manage to call her anything but "Miss Sidle."

The day she moved to Las Vegas? No. I was too wrapped up feeling guilty over Holly Gribbs to properly greet her, or even thank her for uprooting her life at my beck and call.

So it would have to start with the day I told her I didn't want to be without her anymore. The day she grabbed me, kissed me, knocked me to the ground and kept going. The day I learned what paradise felt like.

I would give anything to live in one of those days again. I had two years with her, so many lazy Saturday mornings spent wrapped around Sara's warm, lithe body, and I took them all for granted. I thought I had done the hard part…I had let my walls down, let her inside and it would be smooth sailing from then on.

But it didn't work that way. Because while there are days you wish would never end, there are also days that turn into nightmares you can't escape.

It wasn't even the day that Natalie took Sara away that became my living hell. It was what happened on the day we found her, barely breathing in the desert.

The doctors called it a deep coma, a persistent silent state brought about by lack of oxygen due to flash flooding that had nearly buried her in mud beneath three thousand pounds of metal. By the time we reached her, she was unconscious. And despite the best doctors in Las Vegas, Sara never woke up.

I was prepared for the worst. I told myself every day that if it was the day her body chose to give up, it would be all right. I would let her go, happy that we'd been together even for such a small amount of time.

But that day never came. She clung to her life fiercely. She was, in her own words from so long ago, too tough to die.

So now, eight years later, I'm still trapped in that day and everything that happened because of it.

On the way to the hospice I had Sara moved to seven years earlier, I called the one person who'd been there through it all.

Catherine answered like she always did, a bit out of breath, as if she'd had to juggle a dozen things in order to take your call, and you really should feel grateful that she had. "Gil, this better be good."

When I told her, she dropped the phone. It took several seconds for her to pick it back up, seconds I spent wondering how many different kinds of reactions I would get to this news from all the people who had known and loved Sara.

"You're not kidding, are you?" she demanded a minute later.

"No." There was a lump in my throat that I kept trying to swallow back. Instead of getting better, it was only getting worse. "We're on our way to her now."

I could almost see her expression, surprised and judgmental. "We? You're taking her?"

Glancing to my right, I nodded and tried to smile, not wanting to worry my passenger. "I am."

"And…you think that's a good idea for either of them?"

"Sara needs to know." The lump was starting to hurt. I felt like the past eight years and all the mistakes I'd made were sitting at the base of my throat, cutting off my oxygen. "I mean…how long do you think I could keep it from her, anyway?"

Catherine sighed. "I guess there really isn't a good way to handle it, is there?"

I turned the car off the main road, onto a very familiar driveway. "If there is, let me know in the next two minutes."

"I can't believe this is real," she said. Her voice had changed. Softened. I remembered then how hard Catherine had worked to find Sara in the desert. "But I'm really glad it is, Gil. When you see her…tell she's been very, very missed."

There were so many things I needed to tell Sara. Catherine would just have to forgive me if her sentiment didn't make the list.

I didn't let myself dwell on the past too much, but when I did, I tried to think about the wonderful moments Sara and I shared in our all-too short time together. We were a much sillier couple than anyone probably expected we would be. We had inside jokes, private names for each other, things no one else but us would find funny.

Sara freed me in a way I'd never been before. Even in bed, after she'd drained my very soul, she could crinkle her nose a certain way and I couldn't keep from laughing out loud. I was liberated with her; I could do anything. But I didn't have to be anyone but myself.

Sex with Sara wasn't always a wonderful, grand explosion of perfect passion. On one of our more memorable times together, we got carried away and didn't close the bedroom door completely. On the brink of climax, the dog nosed his way inside, came up to the bed, sat down and watched us until we noticed him.

Being well-trained, he slunk out of the room with his tail between his legs when I ordered him out, but something in the way I did it tickled Sara's funny bone. She burst out laughing, unaware that the sudden jolt of energy made her body clamp around me. I tried to hold back, but I lost control too early.

With another woman, I might have pulled away, embarrassed and mortified. I would have distanced myself from her, ashamed of my own fallibility.

But with Sara, I found the humor in the moment. Instead of fleeing, I smothered her laughter with kisses and made her moan with my fingers. We fell asleep warm, sated and smiling.

I'm glad I didn't know that would be the last time we'd make love. I didn't try to make it anything more than what it was: a celebration of how Sara had changed my entire world, and how I loved her like no one else.

The nurse who had called us with the news had been Sara's personal caretaker for five of the years she'd spent at Ridgemont Acres. Sheila cared about Sara as much as any of her friends, even though she'd never spoken to her or heard her laugh.

She greeted us at the door to Sara's room with a careful, cautious smile, and instantly my fears about this day seemed all too possible. Would Sara remember me? Would she remember what we shared? After eight years, would she still be the woman I'd loved?

"Please just tell me she hasn't forgotten," I said, unable to stop myself.

Shaking her head, Sheila brushed tears away with the back of her hand. "She's been asking for you, Gil."

I closed my eyes for a long time, and it was only when I felt a delicate hand grasp mine that I managed to regain control. I held her hand tighter than I usually would have.

"I'll stay out here with Sheila," she told me. I opened my mouth to protest, but she shook her dark head. "It's okay. You go see her first."

I gave her a small kiss before relaxing my grip. My feet were numb all the way to the door, and I pushed it open with so much anticipation that I almost felt dread. There would be no middle ground in this.

It would either be a rebirth or an instant death.

I'd asked Sheila not to tell Sara much more than that I was on my way, not because I didn't trust the nurse, but because it was my burden to bear. I'd made all the choices that had led to this moment. Sara deserved to hear everything from me.

But all of that could wait. When I stepped inside the room, there she was. Awake. Aware. Pale and a bit weak, but not without the spark of life for which I'd fallen so hard.

"Gil," she whispered. Her voice was hoarse from misuse. "What's going on?"

I could have told her right then, but I needed to touch her first. It was almost like it wasn't real yet. She could have been an illusion, a figment of my imagination. I'd had so many dreams in which she woke up; how could I be sure this wasn't one of them unless I touched her?

Her hands were soft and manicured. Sheila took such good care of her, and every time I took Sara's hand between mine, I silently thanked the nurse. But this time was different. This time when I gently squeezed her fingers, Sara squeezed back.

"This isn't a dream," I said, my voice cracking a bit. Still holding her hand, I dropped into the chair by her bed. Something came over me, or maybe it was more like something suddenly broke. Feelings I'd been holding back for so long overwhelmed me. I felt myself hunching over, a last ditch effort to hide my face from her.

But I couldn't hide the tears on my lips, the wetness I pressed into her skin as I kissed her hand over and over again.

"Gil," I heard her say again. Something in the way she said my name, so small and frightened, so unlike Sara, made me look up at her.

Age hadn't touched her in the eight years she'd slept. But I knew right then that time had left its mark on me. We locked eyes, and although I wanted to melt into that warm, chocolate stare, I knew she was studying me. Searching for clues as to what had happened to her.

Finally, she asked a question I couldn't avoid answering.

"How long…have I been here?"

The first week after we found Sara in the desert was probably the easiest time. We all believed she'd wake up at any moment. And no one believed it more than Greg Sanders. He did everything short of grabbing Sara's shoulders and bodily shaking her to make her wake up. I think I even heard him promise to give up coffee and porn if she'd just open her eyes.

"She can hear you, Grissom," he told me a few days after we found her. "You've gotta be really careful what you say around her. When she wakes up, she'll remember it all."

All of her doctors agreed with that every day that passed, the odds of her waking up grew slimmer. I sat by her side, feeling every minute that slipped by. I wanted Greg to be right, and maybe if I just said the right thing, something would flip on within her and she'd sit up in bed, ready to argue with me.

A week turned into two weeks. And then three. A month went by and Sara remained the same, no better, no worse.

One night, I came into her room only to find Greg sitting by her side, holding her hand.

"Don't worry, Sara," I heard him tell her. "We'll make sure Grissom's okay, I promise." He sniffed. "So if you just can't fight anymore…it's okay if you stop."

I don't remember much that happened after that, but apparently I grabbed him by the collar and shoved him out of her room, swearing he'd never be allowed back. It took a long time for me to forgive him.

And I didn't apologize to him until almost two years later, on the day I told her the same thing.

Make no mistake, I never stopped loving Sara. But time passes and the world can't come to a complete stop. As the weeks turned into months and the months became years, I found that I couldn't be by her side all of the time. There were other people who needed me. My life had to go on.

If I'm very lucky, Sara will forgive me for that.

She didn't say anything for a long time after I answered her question. Her head shook back and forth ever so slightly; her eyes pleaded with me to tell her I was just making a horrible joke. But I couldn't do that. I couldn't fix everything for her. I'd never been able to.

Her palm was cold and damp. She was scared…I couldn't blame her. She'd lost eight years of her life.

And I hadn't even told her yet about everything that she'd missed.

To Be Continued