notes: This is 1/4. I think. I hope. We'll see. Also, no beta. All mistakes are mine.
Come on let's fall in love... again.
"Half-Life," Duncan Sheik
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"How can you drink that?" His nose wrinkles at the searing, black coffee in her cup. The steam that rises off of it smells like turpentine, and he can't fathom how anyone can find something that must taste so acrid in any way appealing. It's the morning, and the cafe reeks of sugary-sweet pastry and espresso.
The sun is cutting through the tinted windows of the coffee shop and it's hot in that way that it's bound to get hotter. Of course it's bound to get hotter, he supposes, it is the desert and it's not likely to cut them a break. Looking over at her, he wants to contain the smile that perks his lips but doesn't bother, what would be the point? Attribute it to early-morning lethargy or just that he hasn't ingested his standard amount of caffeine, but Gil Grissom finds it quite difficult to look away.
And why look away, too, after having gone without looking upon her for more than a year? She's such a welcome sight, all long and relaxed and easy. She's everything that he's been missing here but doesn't have the heart to tell her that. It would be too much, too soon, or too little, too late. Too much of something and he doesn't want to fracture the easy friendship he's managed to volley back to her by complicating things.
He's a simple man and thus he will do with indulging in simple pleasures: a cup of coffee with a person he absolutely adores. A person who is wearing her hair messy and curly, who is adorned in an old UCLA sweatshirt that he once lent her (had she worn it on purpose?) and faded converse sneakers. Sara Sidle looks younger than her years, yet-to-be-jaded, perfectly carefree and dare he think, amazing. She is one of the most diligent workers he's ever met, one of the smartest, one of the most enigmatic women he's had the chance to know.
He thinks that he loves her for it; he could be wrong.
Her hand makes its way to the packets of sugar and her fingers trail over the flimsy paper edges; she decides against sweetener.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she begins in retort, thunking a spoon into the mug although there's nothing to stir. "This is how big boys and girls drink their coffee." With a hand stained by the chocolate chips in her muffin, she gestures to the mug in front of him. "Seriously, I don't know many straight men who'll order a white chocolate mocha in public."
He scoffs at her and palms the hot porcelain; he would bring it to his lips and drink but that would obscure his examination of her and how she holds her own coffee. Like it's an old friend, like she can't get enough she gulps it as she smoothes the wrinkles out of the local paper. Emblazoned across the top is a headline explaining that the crime rate has sky rocketed, and he wonders how she feels about that. Instead of putting voice to his question, he shakes a bit of powdered chocolate on top of his mocha and sits back.
"Really? More chocolate?" Her eyes are on the paper and haven't lifted from it. He smiles; she can place his movements just as well as he can place hers. It's intrinsic, they know one another, they're aware of one another, all the time.
"If I'd known I would have been berated for my caffeinated beverage of choice, I wouldn't have bothered to come," he says in jest.
Sara looks at him from under her lids, paper balanced on legs that are perched on the chair to her left, hand around her coffee; the pen in her other hand jitters ever so slightly. She's never looked so lovely, that he can say, unequivocally. In a halo of early morning sunlight, she sits and just relaxes with him. "Oh please, Gil, yes you would have."
It's then that his fears are completely assuaged, if anything over the last seventy-two hours has cast doubt on his decision.
He's glad she decided to stay in Vegas, whether for him or not.
They sit in companionable silence and it's a wonder to him that he's not itching to ask her for the crossword from her paper. He's more than happy to simply sit and say nothing, watch her read, drink his coffee. It's quite a welcome thing, being suddenly and unequivocally at peace.
Sara is circling things here and there, shaking her head at others, outright laughing at some. "'Two bedroom, no pets, single females only please.' Okay, so, a serial killer is renting that one," she says offhandedly, "Clearly." With a large stroke, she draws a huge red 'X' over the listing.
It's quiet for a time, the background noise of the other patrons moving about just "You work tonight?" she asks, not bothering to look up at him, like they're the oldest of friends, like she does this all the time. Like they do this all the time; it's endearing.
He smiles and leans back, "I do, in fact."
"Sucks," it comes out with just a touch of jest, and she looks up at him for the briefest of seconds.
She wants a cigarette and she says so, says she wants to smoke it right down to the filter, just to get a rise out of him. His eyes roll theatrically and although it's a habit he doesn't encourage, there's something about her holding that cigarette to her mouth, sucking in the smoke, that's appealing in a way that nothing else is. It's a guilty though, and he banishes it by clearing his throat and asking, "I thought you were quitting?"
"Tomorrow," she promises and drains her mug, circles one last apartment listing before stuffing the thin paper into her bag. She pulls out a pack of Marlboros and a lighter and shoves them haphazardly into her pocket.
Gil doesn't know what to say, and so he says what he knows, "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow-"
"Can the Macbeth," she begs around a cigarette; her fingers work the lighter quickly and before he can close the door to the shop behind him, she's got a rhythm going. "I promise not to light up again today," Sara begins as they make their way for her beat up Chevy. "If you promise to keep a lid on the quotes, seriously, can't take it."
"Maybe," Grissom says.
Well, maybe a lot of things.