Unexpected

One:
An Unexpected Visitor

Author's Note:

This is an edited reissue of a previously released story by the same name and is the first installment in my "And They All Fell Down" series.

Takes place just after the events of episode 513 "Nesting Dolls," circa February 2005.

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Sara Sidle gave an amused half-laugh at the unexpected knock on her apartment door. She wasn't really altogether used to having visitors.

Although this visitor wasn't all that unlooked-for.

He had said that he would stop by later.

But as she glanced at her watch, she realized he was several hours earlier than he should have been.

He should be at work right now.

And Gil Grissom was not a man to skive off work for anything.

To her knowledge, the man had never called in sick, had more bankable vacation time than even she did and never conducted personal business on company time.

Of course, this particular meeting might not be of the personal variety.

Not like she wasn't expecting it, but still, no one liked to be notified that they were being fired whether in person or not.

Besides, even if it was bad news, Sara had to admit that she was looking forward to seeing Grissom again.

At first, she thought it would be mortifying seeing him right after the afternoon's revelations.

She had always imagined that telling him about her family would have been an extremely difficult task, which was probably why she had waited as long as she had to tell him in the first place.

Instead, the entire experience had proven profoundly cathartic.

Then, after she had taken the risk and told him everything, Grissom had, instead of shrinking away, instead of retreating in terror, disgust or embarrassment, had actually reached out to her – literally.

Now Sara could probably count the number of time Gil Grissom had taken her hand on a single hand and still would have had several fingers left over.

Sadly, most of those times -- hell, all of those times -- weren't exactly some of her finest moments.

The first time had been after the lab explosion.

She could hardly remember anything, except for the gentle way he had cradled her hand in his as he examined the gash the glass fragments had left behind.

The second time, she had been horrified.

Being pulled over for driving under the influence had been bad enough.

Having your supervisor called in was unpleasant to say the least -- especially when said supervisor was someone who you perhaps not so secretly had harbored feelings for ever since the first time you met.

Yet, he had been gentle then, too.

All the recriminations she'd been afraid to hear, all the disappointment she expected to see when she could finally get up the nerve to face him weren't there.

Instead, he looked hurt, concerned and perhaps a little scared.

Scared of what, she didn't know and didn't dare ask.

He had merely taken her hand in his, told her he was going to take her home and escorted her out of the Police Department and into his car.

After they parked in a vacant space in her apartment complex's lot, he took her hand again and led her up the stairs to her own front door. He only released his grasp to use her keys to let them inside.

There had been so much she had wanted to say to him at that moment – explanations, apologies, anything really.

She merely let him wordlessly take her coat and drape it over a chair before he disappeared into the kitchen. Sara, for her own part, simply sank onto the sofa and covered her face with her hands, trying hard not to be sick.

After a few minutes, the ever-comforting aroma of freshly brewed coffee perfumed the small apartment.

When he returned to living room, Grissom placed a single steaming cup on the coffee table. As Sara reached for it, he handed her a tall glass of orange juice instead. She tried to look grateful for the juice as she greedily watched him consume the coffee.

As if he had been reading her mind, he said, "You need the vitamins. Plus, you need to get some sleep."

She almost asked him when was the last time he had slept, but decided against opening that can of worms.

Instead, she tried with a great deal of difficulty to sound slightly amused rather than annoyed, when she retorted, "Practicing your bedside manner, Doctor Grissom?"

Although each unseen by the other, they both smiled slightly.

"Entomologists don't have to worry about having a good bedside manner," he replied in a matter of fact tone. "Our subjects usually don't care what sort of mood you're in."

"Makes it easier that way, doesn't it?" Sara asked, finishing her juice.

"Sometimes," he conceded, replacing his mug on the table.

He seemed to feel that the consumption of the perfunctory beverages was the signal for him to go. Yet, he almost seemed reluctant as he rose from his place beside her on the couch. They had been sitting close, but not close enough for the gesture to be construed into anything but a sign of friendly camaraderie.

"Will you call me if you need anything?" Grissom had asked, his voice still full of concern.

"Yeah," Sara had replied, though she had no intention of entangling Grissom any further into her already screwed up life.

That extremely well-meant resolution had seemed to hold until Sara had managed to cross the line with a murder suspect (even if the man was a misogynistic prick), had a very public argument with Catherine (Sara really was in the right here) and been wholly and completely insubordinate with Conrad Ecklie (though telling off the incompetent ass off had felt incredibly satisfying at the time) all in the space of less than twenty minutes.

None of those things were particularly wise career moves and put together she had probably deserved worse than the week's suspension without pay the Deputy Director had slapped on her.

When Supervisor Gil Grissom had shown up, Sara was sure he had come to fire her.

Surprisingly, he hadn't.

He'd come to listen – a trait she'd seen him employ with great success with both crime victims and criminal suspects, but seldom with the members of the team he managed.

It wasn't that he didn't care. He did. He just wasn't very good at showing it -- usually.

This time, however, he would not let Sara hide behind all the anger and hurt that she carried around as a shield to protect herself from other people. He merely sat and listened, saying little, and not uttering those however well-meant trite sentiments that everybody always seemed to think you want to hear for some reason, when the truth is that those words were the last thing in the world you wanted ever wanted anyone to say.

Then when she had finally broken down and cried – hell, sobbed – he simply took her hand to silently let her know that he was still there.

After she had stopped crying, he had handed her a clean handkerchief from his jacket pocket and although Sara never really thought of handkerchiefs as being particularly hygienic, she took it gratefully, hurriedly wiped her eyes with it and then further employed it -- with a very little show of grace -- to blow her nose in a rather loud, almost goose honking-like manner.

That had earned her a rare smile as Grissom had told her to keep the handkerchief. His mother apparently kept him well-stocked.

He gave her free hand a slight squeeze as he got up and vanished into the kitchen. This time he emerged with two cups of coffee.

"If I knew you were that handy in the kitchen, I would have invited you over a lot sooner," Sara tried to joke as she sipped at the hot beverage.

"I'm better with breakfast," he said, returning her smile.

After that, they merely sat together, she on her chair and he on the sofa, drinking that life-blood that serves to sustain all night shift workers, both saying nothing, as if at that particular moment in time nothing needed to be said.

That had been one of the first companionable silences Sara and Grissom had shared in a long time -- in ages -- in years, perhaps.

The whole thing had been, if she truly allowed herself to admit it, even if only to herself -- nice.

Just before he left, he gave her hand another gentle squeeze and said that he would be by later, if that was all right with her. She had given him a soft, grateful smile when she told him it was.

However, it was still way too early for him to have returned. He had only been gone for a few hours and it was just after the graveyard shift had begun.

So it was with a bemused, yet befuddled look on her face that she opened the door.

"Shouldn't you be…" Sara began, but the slight smirk slid off her face as she caught sight of the actual person standing on her doorstep.

Needless to say, it was not the person she had been expecting, nor indeed was it really someone she really wanted to see at this particular moment.

Still, she regained her composure or at least tried to, as she stammered "Uh, hi," in surprise. "What can I do for you, Catherine?"

Catherine Willows, not being the sort of person who tended to beat around the bush when she had something in particular that she deemed particularly important to say, said without greeting, preamble, explanation or apology, "I hope you know what you're doing."

Sara took an almost automatic step backwards, opening the door a bit wider and indicating for her erstwhile colleague and her now -- as Ecklie had so insistently reminded her – superior to enter.

Besides, Sara was fairly sure that this conversation was not one her neighbors really needed to hear.

Especially as she wasn't sure that she wanted to hear it herself.

"Why don't you sit down?" She suggested, trying to diffuse the almost palpable tension with an attempt at civility. "Would you like something to drink? Water? Juice? I'm sorry but I don't have anything stronger."

She had dumped the last few bottles of beer in her fridge down the drain after Grissom had left.

Catherine didn't answer her. Instead, she asked, "He's been here, hasn't he?"

There was no question of whom the "he" she was talking about was.

How Catherine had instantly known perplexed Sara for a moment until she realized that she hadn't removed the pair of coffee cups from where she and Grissom had left them several hours earlier. She had been so exhausted from the afternoon's revelations that she stumbled into bed right after she had closed the door on Grissom's retreating form.

Even without the mugs, Catherine hadn't been promoted to CSI supervisor for nothing.

She had years of experience in reading a room, plus she had incredible instincts, a trait that Sara rued at this moment.

Sara saw no point in denying Catherine's accusations. She and Grissom hadn't been up to anything. It had been a purely platonic interlude between a concerned boss and a troubled member of his team.

At least that was what Sara told herself.

In reality, it had been a bit more intimate than that, in some ways a lot more intimate than that, with her sharing her deepest, darkest secrets and fears with him and Grissom being there quiet and still and yet infinitely comforting.

Sara knew she had to tell Catherine at least part of the truth, because if she just categorically denied it, Catherine would assume that a lot more had happened than what in point of fact did and the lab's gossip mills would put both her and Grissom through the wringer and that was the absolute last thing Sara wanted.

Not so much for herself, as gossip never really got to her, but for Grissom's sake.

For a man like Gil Grissom appearance and reputation were key. They were the things that he had worked his whole life to achieve and he valued them accordingly.

Sara knew he had worked too long and too hard to have it all ruined by some silly rumors and childish innuendo.

So she simply said, "Yes" and invited her not quite welcome guest to sit.

Catherine, however, did not seem to have come with hospitality on her mind and the sooner Sara let her get out whatever was on her mind, the quicker the two women might be able to return to some semblance of normality.

Hopefully, one that did not include Catherine barging into her apartment looking like she was about to spit fire, Sara mused.

The younger woman thought that perhaps it might help if she extended an olive branch of sorts.

"Look, Catherine, back at the lab, I was out of line. I never should have…"

Catherine raised one hand in an almost imperious manner while she kept her other perched jauntily on her hip.

"I didn't come here for an apology," she said dismissively. Then giving Sara a piercing sort of look, she continued, "I really do hope you know what you are doing."

Sara was dumbfounded and probably looked it, too. "I have no idea what –"

"Cut the crap, Sara. If you want to screw up your own life, that's your business and you're welcome to it, but you don't have to take Gil down with you."

Sara stood speechless for a moment then frowned, completely at a loss.

What had she done to take Grissom down with her?

The whole volatile situation had been purely between herself, Catherine and Ecklie – Grissom hadn't figured in the argument at all. He hadn't even been present. So how was he in trouble?

"Honestly," Sara began, "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

"You're telling me you didn't put him up to it?" Catherine asked -- or rather demanded -- in a harsh, disparaging tone.

"Up to what?"

Instead of answering Sara's confused query, Catherine answered the question with a question of her own –

"What did you say to him?"

"Catherine, that's private."

Not only did Sara not want to rehash the horrors of her childhood for a second time in twenty-four hours, she really did not want to be having a conversation about the relationship (or lack thereof) between herself and the said Gil Grissom with anyone and certainly not with Catherine.

Things had been a little more tense than usual between her and the older CSI ever since Eddie had been murdered and Catherine had blamed Sara for not getting Lindsay the justice she thought her daughter deserved.

Sara thought things had thawed slightly when the two women had commiserated about the perfidy of men over a few drinks at a local bar.

Apparently, Sara's little outburst had managed to sour things again.

"He had words with Ecklie," Catherine explained.

That surprised her. "Grissom? About?"

"You, damnit, Sara. Grissom told Ecklie that he had 'taken care of things.' That you were a good criminalist and that the lab needed you."

For some reason, Grissom's words didn't strike Sara as all together that surprising. He had pretty much said the exact same thing to her a few years back – except for the taking care of things part.

That bit puzzled her, but she didn't see anything all that worrisome about any of that, or at least nothing so worrisome as to cause Catherine to practically race from the lab, break down Sara's door and proceed to give her the third degree.

"Gil said your outbursts, your attitude and actions over the last few months were a direct fault of his mismanagement."

"That's not true," Sara protested.

Her problems were her problems. She wasn't about to let anyone else take the blame for her choices or her mistakes.

Certainly not Grissom.

"After Gil refused to fire you, Ecklie suggested that perhaps he should fire him instead," Catherine continued.

"Fire Grissom?"

"Yeah."

A sudden sense of panic filled Sara. She wasn't quite sure she wanted to hear the answer to her next question, but she had to ask it, to know the truth before the suspense killed her.

"He didn't…"

Catherine laughed at this – a cruel, mirthless sort of laugh.

"Fire Grissom? Hell no. Of course not. Ecklie's not that stupid. But you know Conrad…"

Catherine's use of the deputy director's given name made the hair on the back of Sara's neck stand up on end. The apparent familiarity between her former co-worker and the goon who had been promoted to boss over the entire lab, made Sara distinctly uncomfortable.

As if completely obvious to Sara's discomfort, Catherine kept talking --

"… Been looking for a way to get at Grissom since he was promoted. And Gil wouldn't know how to play politics if his career depended on it. Hence that stupid stunt he pulled to save your ass. By the way, just so you know, and this is per Ecklie – you're Grissom's 'problem' now."

Before Sara could come up with any semblance of a suitable reply to this revelation, Catherine's cell phone chirped noisily.

"Excuse me," Catherine said, abruptly turning her back on Sara and taking a few steps closer to the door. "Yes, Lindsay. Yes, I will be home as soon as I can. Yes, tomorrow I will drop you and your friends at the movies. No, I haven't forgotten that I promised to take you to the mall. Yes. No, Lindsay, that wasn't part of the deal. Look the sooner I get off the phone, the sooner I can get home. We'll talk about it then. Yeah. See you soon." Catherine turned back to Sara, looking a little harried after the conversation with her daughter. As she snapped her phone shut impatiently, she said, "Look, Sara, just be careful. For both your sakes."

Sara nodded wordlessly, still trying to take in everything she had just been told. As she shut the door behind Catherine's hurriedly retreating form, she picked up her own phone from her desk and began dialing, thankful for the fact that the West Coast was an hour behind Vegas.

After the line rang a few times, a familiar voice greeted her warmly.

Throwing all courtesy and custom out the window, Sara asked without preamble,

"Jack, does your invitation still stand?"