AN: thanks to everyone who read and reviewed my fics! you people make my day :)
Disclaimer: I do not own CSI :(
Spoilers: 807
Summary: After Sara quit the job neither her nor Grissom answer the team's calls so Catherine goes to check up on them and finds Grissom - alone. GrissomCathFriendship, GSR
The Aftermath
As she enters the house she can't help but notice the smell of beer everywhere. She swallows hard. Then she hears the sound of claws on the tiles, she stops. They have a dog? She sure hopes the animal won't attack her, after all she broke into the house...
But the boxer is wagging his tail and as he reaches her he lies down and turns on his back. She smiles and kneels down, scratching his stomach. "Good boy."
She gets up when she notices the empty food and water bowl in the corner. "You must be starving." She sighs and wonders where Grissom is keeping the dog food.
As she walks into the kitchen she gets her answer, the scratces on one of the cabinet doors are clearly fresh and clearly caused by a dog – a hungry dog. "Good God, you were starving." The dog is next to her now, wagging his tail and drooling all over her. She fills up his bowl and puts it on the floor – it doesn't take him longer than a minute to completely clean it out.
Then she gets up and makes her way to the living room, now she knows where the beer smell comes from. There are about ten to fifteen emptied beer bottles scattered all over the room, under the coffe table she finds a half emptied bottle of schnaps and somewhere underneath the empty pizza and chinese takeout boxes must be another forgotten bottle of beer – open but, not yet, completely empty because there is beer drippring onto the carpet. She shakes her head in disbelif. What the hell is going on here?
She continues her way through the house to the bedroom, under normal circumstances she wouldn't cross that line but she is worried; after Sara quit work last week nobody has seen or heard from neither her nor Grissom.
She tries to make out sounds from the room but she can't hear anything, so she opens the door as quiet as possible. It's as messy in there as in the living room, more empty bottles of beer, another empty bottle of booze... only addition is the passed out man on the bed.
She is in shock to find him like this. He is still wearing the same clothes he'd been wearing the day that Sara left the lab, he obviously didn't shave or take a shower since then either, his hands are clutching a navy blue sweatshirt, pressing it to his chest... and then it hits her, the lab was not the only thing Sara left that day!
She is shocked and her heart hurts for Grissom. She decides to let him sleep for a little longer and to clean up the house. She can't help but count the bottles while she picks them up; fourty three bottles of beer, one bottle of schnaps, one bottle of wodka – in less than six days.
For a moment she wonders if she should have taken a picture of that mess and email it to Sara, showing her what she did to Grissom. But then she starts thinking, remembering. In all these years Grissom had been a total ass to Sara more than once and she had always stayed, in all these years Sara had been fighting for him to finally admit that he had feelings for her – why would she leave now? Now when they were together, now when they had the chance to openly live together and be happy together?
This just didn't make any sense! Sara loved Grissom, she always had and it had never been a real secret to anyone at the lab and even to those who had not noticed it before, the way she had looked at him when the two of them had shown up at the cart tracks that day had made everything obvious - that look had said more than thousand words. And Grissom, Grissom loved Sara so much, she had seen it with her own eyes, the panick that he'd lose her – the only person he had ever loved – when they'd been trying to find her that day out there in the desert.
No, Sara wouldn't leave Grissom and Grissom wouldn't leave Sara. It doesn't make any freaking sense!
She grabs a bottle of water from the fridge and rummages her purse for her bottle of aspirin. Then she walks back to the bedroom.
Sitting down on the edge of the matress she gently nudges Grissom's shoulder. "Gil." She whispers.
No reaction.
"Gil." She says a little louder, nudging him less gently.
He groans.
"Gil, it's me." She says softly.
"Leave." He buries his face into his pillow.
"I have some water and some aspirin." She offers.
"Just go away." He groans again.
She sighs. "Gil, I'm not leaving you like this."
It takes a while until he answers, he's probably trying to get himself together before he eventually finds the strength to sit up. "She left me Cath." He sobs, he doesn't seem to care that she sees him like this, he doesn't seem to care about anything. Then he takes the aspirin and swallows it, emptying the bottle of water.
They remain in silence for a long time.
"What happened?" She asks, trying not to speak too loud for the sake of his head.
"It's all my fault," He sounds so helpless and desperate. "I should have noticed. I should have noticed that she was unhappy. She never was happy..."
He burries his face in his hands, starting to shake violently. Catherine puts her arm around his shoulders and gives him a soft squeze. "Gil, I saw the look on her face in the last two years. You made her happy, there is absolutely no doubt about how happy you made her."
He shakes his head. He lets go of the sweatshirt with one hand and reaches for the letter. "There, that's all she left me."
Catherine reaches out for the letter and carefully unfolds it. Most of the words are blurred, she gives him an insecure look.
He sighs. "I read this over and over again... no matter how often I read it I still don't get it."
He must have cried a lot while reading it. Catherine feels so sorry, for him and for Sara because still she can't belive that Sara would leave Grissom without any reason. In order for Sara to leave Grissom something really bad must have happened.
She tries to make out the words but all she can read are a few words here and there. Sara wrote something about her father being dead, about never having dealt with his death, about never having dealt with her past. Then it says something about Grissom and she can make out the word 'finally'. And then it says that she can't deal with her problems in Vegas.
She is not done reading when Grissom takes the letter away from her again.
"She says she loves me." He shakes his head. "But how can she leave me if she loves me?"
"I don't know." She sighs.
"This, this is why I was so scared of falling for her." He wipes some tears of his cheeks with the back of his hand. "I knew one day she would leave me. Now I have nothing left. She's gone. She is my life and now she is gone."
Cath sighs, then she stands up. "Get up." She tells him determined.
He gives her a questioning look.
"Get up, take a shower, shave, put on some new clothes and then come to work with me." She commands.
He considers it for a moment. "I can't."
She shakes her head. "Oh yes, you can." She tugs on his arm until he stands up. "Give me that sweatshirt."
His eyes widen. "No."
"Gil," She rolls with her eyes.
"No. I can't." He presses the sweatshirt to his chest. "It's hers."
"It's Sara's sweatshirt?" She asks carefully.
"It's mine. But it's her favorite shirt. She says it smells of me and that's why she likes it so much... but it really smells of her... she always wears it when she's cold..." He sobs again. "And she didn't take it with her. She always takes it with her when she can't stay for the night. She didn't take it this time..."
Now she has enough. "Okay. Give me that shirt Gil."
He shakes his head again.
"I am not letting you do this to yourself. Life has to go on." She drags him to the bathroom and takes the sweatshirt away from him. "Shower, shave, get dressed. I will be waiting in the living room."
With that said she leaves the room. Wondering how she should pass the time she walks through the living room, taking a closer look at the pictures on the walls and on the bookshelves. One is a black and white picture of a little boy, that must be Grissom as a kid. She smiles softly, he was a cute kid. She continues, finding a picture of a cute little girl in a pokerdot dress and a bow in her curly hair. That has to be Sara. Cath sighs, the two of them would have the most adorable kids ever. On the next shelf is a picture of Sara and Grissom, she is looking into the camera and smiles while he is kissing her right above her ear, he's smiling too, the little wrinkles around his eyes show that without a doubt. Such a cute couple. There is another picture of Sara and a puppy – she's smiling and there is no doubt that he is happy. Catherine shakes her head, wishing that Grissom would just take a look at these pictures and realize that he did make Sara happy.
She doesn't notice him when he enters the room. Only when he clears his throat she realizes that he is staring at her.
She gives him a soft smile. "Sorry."
He shrugs. "No worries." He sighs. "I already made a fool of myself in there, can't get any worse."
"Gil," Catherine hopes he can't hear in her voice how much she pitys him. "You didn't make a fool of yourself. Everybody goes through harsh times sometimes. You and Sara had to go through a lot of shit lately and it's only normal that at some point you just have to let all the emotions out."
"Why didn't I notice that she wasn't feeling good?" He asks sadly.
"I don't think she was unhappy when she was with you. Maybe, maybe she had to leave because being with you made her forget all her pain and as soon as you left for work it all came back to haunt her. If she's with you she doesn't deal with it and it's probably time to finally deal with everything that hurts her." She only tried to comfort him, but now she realizes how much sense her words actually made.
"She never told me that she was sad."
"She probably didn't want you to worry." She gives him a soft smile. "She never wanted you to worry."
He nods. "That's true."
"She'll come back." Cath says determined.
He tries to belive her, she can see it in his eyes. He hopes that she is right.
"I'm sure." Her smile is wider now. "She loves you and she will come back once she dealt with whatever problems she has."
Grissom takes a deep breath. "Thank you Cath."
She shrugs. "That's what friends are for."
"You are not going to tell anyone about this, are you?" He raises an eyebrow.
"Don't worry." She chuckles. "Nobody needs to know."
Then she walks to the door. "You coming?"
He nods, then he follows her out to the car, ready to face the world. If Sara can be strong and fight her demons out there all by herself then he can deal with a few lab rats.
THE END
I hoped this was okay :) tell me what you think :)