Title: Gaps
Author:
AliCat713
Rating: T
Spoilers: None
Word
Count: 6 - 100 word drabbles
Pairings: GSR
Disclaimer:
The characters on CSI are not mine. This story is.
Author's
Note: Written for
mingsmommy
; because I would write just about anything to make her smile, and
because she thinks I can. (Written in response to prompt
34: Gap at
gsrdrabbles.)
Gap I
It was his hidden talent.
It was useful in his line of work. Accurate depictions of crime scenes were almost as important as photographs; but his careful, capable hands seemed to make artwork out of necessity.
It was no surprise to find himself turning to charcoals and sketchbooks as a diversion away from work as well. He would sketch her in the quiet solitude of his bedroom after particularly difficult shifts.
His heart's desire, reverently placed on his bedside table.
He was startled to discover that, over time, the importance of their age gap disappeared in her impossibly lovely profile.
Gap II
Her father always told her you could drive a train through it.
Her mother promised her that when she was released, she would get her braces to fix it.
Her last foster parents did a double-take the first time she smiled; but they kept her, so maybe it didn't have anything to do with it at all.
Her first boyfriend angrily offered to knock it out of her mouth if she outsmarted him again.
But the first time she knew Gil Grissom truly loved her, gap and all, she was finally at peace about it -- and loved it too.
Gap III
He came in by way of the gap between the garage door and the cement floor, changing both of their lives forever.
Grissom found him huddled beneath his crowded workbench. The pitiful whines quickly overwhelmed him and prompted him to call Sara on their first day off together since Nick's abduction.
Dinner plans were abandoned as they stretched out side-by-side on the cool, oily surface of his garage floor. Both males were won over by the soft feminine sounds of her coaxing voice; one scratched behind the ears, the other inexorably drawn to her lips.
And "us" became three.
Gap IV
No one could ever place exactly when their silent war had ended. It was never spoken, but everyone expected hostilities to resume sooner or later.
Brass was – perhaps unsurprisingly – the first to notice a change in the atmosphere. The cool, painfully proper professionalism they exhibited towards one another seemed to be replaced with something lighter, something less hurtful – something almost sweet, and fun. The breach in their friendship seemed to have been closed, finally.
Much like the one-time gap in their physical proximity, Brass thought, as he noticed Grissom lovingly touching Sara's waist.
He could hardly wait to tell Catherine.
Gap V
Grissom and Sara both become intimately familiar with the gap between "wanting" and "having" that night.
Grissom simply wants her back; alive, unhurt, whole, his.
Sara's wants are more complex: she wants both two more -- and two less -- inches. Two more inches of soil moved from under her; two less inches of rain predicted on the weather channel that night. As Grissom works restlessly to find her, she works painfully to change the one variable she can.
Two more inches, and she'll be free.
Hold on, Sara, he thinks.
Her heart hears, and answers
I'm trying, Gil.
Gap VI
No one warned him it would be so hard.
Wrapping his arms around her, he finally knew there was no going back. On some level, he'd never grasped the unalterable gap between then and now.
Then, he had been alone. Now, he had Sara, and their curly-haired, dimple-chinned, sweeter-than-life newborn daughter.
She had ten toes, which he counted when the obstetrician delivered her. She made a breathy gulping noise as she nursed, grasping his finger tightly as he looked on.
It was so hard, having his heart taken by such fragile beauty.
But it was so very worth it.