Title: For One Night Only
Pairing: Sara/Warrick
Spoilers: None
Rating: PG13, AU
Word Count: 2,793
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Archive: At my site, , Anywhere else, please ask.
Summary: Grams warns him about girls going after the guys in the band…
Author's Notes: For the LiveJournal warricksara challenge #2, "Music". It's loose. Very loose.
There was nothing new to the teasing that began the instant the waitress sashayed over to the bandstand during a break between songs, placing a drink on Warrick's piano – Jack Daniel's and Coke, his favourite. What was new was the way that Warrick completely ignored the teasing, looking instead at the waitress, because the drink she'd left down there was Jack Daniel's and Coke – which just so happened to be his favourite. That fact alone was what made him tilt his head curiously, because there was no way anyone, aside from his band mates, could know that, and they, like him, were on the dry tonight – they never drank before or during a performance. Besides, the drink, as they never failed to remind him, was more than an acquired taste, and they were as inclined to mock his liking it as they were to mock him when some enterprising fan took it upon herself to introduce herself to him.
This wouldn't be the first time that someone had sent him a drink, and his usual response was to smile and say thank you, but no more than that. This time however, something – maybe the fact that it was his favourite drink, maybe some sixth sense kicking in – made him call after the waitress, ask who had sent the drink.
Her response was as trite as could be – "The lady at the end of the bar."
But when Warrick looked over to the end of the bar, the lady he saw there had his heart stopping dead in his chest, and he damn near knocked over the drink in his shock.
Almost without being consciously aware of it, he found himself standing, steadying himself with one hand on the rim of the piano. "Count me out for a couple songs," he said, already walking away, pausing only to reach behind him, grab his drink, ignoring the catcalls of his friends, the interested looks of the audience as he made his way through the round tables.
The only thing he noticed was her.
At first glance, she looked completely different than when he'd last seen her; on second, she didn't look that different at all. Perhaps a little thinner than he remembered, but not in a bad way, her hair longer than he was used to, straightened, but not dead straight, falling in gentle waves past her shoulders. More dressed up than he remembered ever seeing her, black trousers, a red halter neck top, shoulders and arms bared.
Teeth bared too, into a smile that fairly took his breath away, and he was a couple of steps away from her when the truth registered – it was the smile that was different. In the dying days of Vegas, it was present, but forced, never reaching her eyes.
Tonight though, as he approached her, Sara's eyes danced, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her look that happy.
When he reached her, was close enough to reach out and touch her, he stopped, laying the drink on the bar, nodding once at her. "I guess I owe you a thank you," he said simply, and he saw her throat move as she swallowed, her shoulders move as she shrugged.
"I guess I figured a drink was the least I owed you," she said, eyes a little duller, smile a little more uncertain, and any thoughts he might have entertained about teasingly giving her a hard time vanished like cigarette smoke in the air.
"How 'bout a hug?" he asked, closing the last of the distance between them, enfolding her in his arms, relieved, but not a little surprised, when she returned the hug, holding on to him tightly.
Dimly, he was aware of the band starting up behind him, the mellifluous sound of Jimmy's saxophone taking the lead, slow sensuous melody surrounding them, blocking out the rest of the world.
It was well into the second verse before she drew back, eyes shining, smile beaming, and she was the Sara he knew again, the one he'd played chess with as a pig burned nearby, the one he'd walked through the sewers of Las Vegas in search of a shower curtain with. She was the Sara he hadn't seen in years, and until that exact moment, he hadn't realised how much he'd missed her.
"Damn, you look good," he told her frankly, noting that she looked even better with a blush coating her cheeks.
"You too," she said, sinking down onto a barstool, gesturing at the one beside it. He sat down too, but finding that the separation was too much for him, he reached out, taking her hand in his. He expected her to protest, ask what he was doing, but she just smiled, looking down at their entwined fingers. "I've missed you Warrick."
She spoke so softly that he might not have been able to hear her over the music had he not been looking at her lips. "We've missed you too," he told her, and he knew that the other CSIs they'd worked with wouldn't mind him speaking on their behalf. Everyone on the graveyard shift had been stunned when they'd walked into the lab one night to be told that she'd left, taking vacation accrued in lieu of notice. He and Nick had tried to call her, but she hadn't answered her phone, and when they'd gone by her place after work, intending to take her out for breakfast, the landlord had informed them that she'd left the previous night, leaving no forwarding address. "Where've you been hiding?"
The shoulder nearest to the bar rose and fell in a shrug. "A couple of months in Washington," she said. "Then New York for another four… five months in Jacksonville… then I moved here… it'll be a year next month."
"Busy couple of years," Warrick couldn't help observing and she looked down, free hand resting on the bar moving to her glass, turning it in circles. The clear liquid caught the lights of the ceiling, refracting a million bursts of colour in the bubbles that rose to the surface, and Warrick blinked in surprise. He knew club soda when he saw it.
He blinked again, more surprise, at her next words. "I had a lot of demons to outrun," she said simply, and he lifted an eyebrow.
"You leave them behind?"
She shook her head, but she didn't seem upset about it. "No. But I learned to live with them. That's when I came home."
A sharp pang of disappointment stabbed through him, because there was a part of him that had never stopped thinking that one day, he'd find himself walking down the Strip, walking into Sara. He'd never envisioned it happening in a bar near Fisherman's Wharf. . "I thought Vegas was home."
This time, her smile was sad. "I wish it could have been. But too much happened there Warrick… much as I might have wanted to stay… I couldn't."
Looking at her now, contrasting the healthy, vital woman with the wraith that had sleepwalked through much of her last year in Las Vegas, Warrick couldn't fault her choice. He could voice one regret though. "I just wish you'd said goodbye."
She looked down again, but not before he registered the dismay in her eyes. "I wanted to," she said. "I did. But I knew if I did… you'd try to talk me into staying. And I knew I couldn't."
He nodded again. "You still with the Crime Lab?"
"Day shift," she told him, her eyes brightening again. "Unlike some people…" Now it was his turn to duck his head, her turn to press her fingers tighter against his. "When did you leave?"
"'Bout six months ago," he said. "I've known these guys for years… played with them sometimes. They got these dates, then their regular pianist found out his wife was pregnant… so they asked me to fill in. Took a leave of absence, and here I am." He didn't tell her that it had been an easy decision to make, that things had changed in the lab since she'd been gone, and not for the better. Grissom had retreated more into his shell than ever, leaving Catherine as de facto night shift supervisor, something that had lead to many a conflict between the two. At times, the atmosphere was downright poisonous, with him and Nick and Greg doing nothing more than keeping their heads down, trying not to get caught in the crossfire. On top of that, he'd surprised himself with how much he really did miss Sara. To distract himself from that train of thought, he looked back towards the band, didn't miss how, even though each of them were intent on their sheet music, the odd eye strayed across to the bar, to him and Sara. "How did you know I was here?"
"Someone at work had one of the free local newspapers, left it in the break room… I was flipping through it when I saw your picture…" She laughed softly, more in amazement than amusement, he felt. "I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me… I thought you'd never leave Vegas." Warrick was sure that she had more to say, but she stopped abruptly, gaze going to the stage, applauding enthusiastically as the song came to an end. At the centre mike, Jimmy looked right at them, catching Warrick's eye in question, and Warrick waved a hand, telling them to carry on without him. Jimmy's face was a cross between amusement and irritation, the former winning out, as he counted in another song, this one as slow as the last. A jerk of his head to the dance floor was hardly subtle, and Warrick looked away quickly, sure that the smile on Sara's face had very little to do with how much she was appreciating jazz music.
"I thought I never would," he told her, exhaling the words on a deep breath. "But things change."
Too late he realised how that sounded, especially when her face fell, her free hand closing over his. "Your grandmother?" she asked, and he shook his head quickly, smiling to reassure her.
"Grams? Nah. She'll see us all down," he told her, and he had no doubt that he was right. "I told her about the offer… told her I was considering it. She told me that if she was the only reason I turned it down, she was going to disown me, so I might as well go on and go." In actual fact, Grams had been a damn sight more fire and brimstone about it all, and the memory of it brought a smile to his face, the music of Sara's delighted laughter extending it. "I call her most nights… get back there as often as I can. But she's great… except she keeps warning me about girls who go after the guys in the band…"
Head thrown back, Sara couldn't stop laughing. "I can just imagine her in the audience some night… beating them off with a walking stick…"
"Walking stick?" Warrick pretended affront. "My Grams? One look and they'd be running."
She held her hands up, mock surrender, surprising him again when, immediately after, both of her hands found one of his. She stared down at them for a long moment, and when she looked up to meet his eyes, she was all serious. "Out of everyone," she told him, unblinking, "I think I've missed you most."
A flush of pleasure mixed with embarrassment heated his cheeks, and his voice was rough with emotion when he replied, "It's mutual."
There was a long silence between them, where Jimmy's saxophone and Bob's guitar wove a spell around them, a spell that had Sara sliding from her stool and into his arms, all in one smooth movement. Her arms wound their way around his neck, her face disappearing in his shoulder, his head resting on hers. His hands were flat against her back, the smooth skin there, and he fancied he could feel her heart racing, or maybe that was his. If it was though, it didn't explain the gooseflesh he felt rippling over her skin when his hand moved, or the shiver that went through her body at the same time.
Both, though, were explained by the look in her eyes when she pulled away from him, only slightly, her face still close enough to his that the merest tilt of either of their heads would lead to their lips touching. Her hand slid down his arm, fingers twining with his, and she breathed a question. "Dance with me?"
He couldn't have said no if he wanted to, stood without being aware of it, was in the middle of the dance floor, her body pressed against his, before he could even think, Her arms were around his waist, his arms around hers, and he didn't want the guys to ever stop playing, though some dim part of his brain that actually remembered the songs they were playing knew that this one was nearly over. To his ever-lasting surprise though, the song didn't end when he knew it should; instead, the band neatly segued into another song, one of his personal favourites, and he made a mental note to buy every one of them a drink.
Then he stopped thinking and just concentrated on Sara.
The jazz notes wrapped around them, seemingly transporting them to another time and place, and as far as Warrick was concerned, they could be the only two people on the planet. There was just him and Sara and the music, and, to add to the whole unreal reality that he found himself immersed in, something miraculous happened halfway through the song.
Sara's lips, soft and pliant, found his, and she was kissing him.
Moreover, he was kissing her back.
When he finally pulled away, far too quickly for his liking, he was breathing hard, as was Sara, and he couldn't help but notice that her pupils were dilated far more than the dim light of the club could safely account for. His hand, when he raised it to her cheek, was shaking… or was it her body that was trembling? Either way, he shakily leaned forward, brushing a kiss across her forehead, trying not to worry about how fistfuls of his shirt were bunched in her palms, as if she was afraid that he was going to disappear.
The song that the band were playing was just about over, and he bit back a sigh, knowing what he had to do. "I need to get back up there," he whispered, and her face registered pure disappointment.
"Warrick…" she began, and he shook his head, cutting her off with that gesture, as well as with the finger that traced a path from her temple to the curve of her chin.
"You can stay a while, right?" he asked, and if his tone was calm, he had a feeling his face, his eyes were anything but, sure that the pleading need he felt inside was written there in six inch letters. "I'd like for you to hear some of my stuff…"
There was that smile again, warming him from the inside out. "I've got all night," she told him, and he smiled too, even as hers faltered. "But Warrick… what happens tomorrow?"
"I don't know," he told her frankly, because if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that there was too much water under the bridge for either of them to make any hard and fast life-changing decisions, not yet. "But I'm not so sure I care."
She drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and he realised that he was holding his breath, waiting for her to speak. "I'm not so sure I do either," she said, and he could breathe again, especially when she added, "But I'd love to hear you play."
Another kiss, and he led her towards the stage, found her a seat close to the piano, one where he could look at her as he played, and he'd never been so glad for all the hours of practice that Grams had made him put in, for the photographic memory that rendered sheet music superfluous. His hands moved lightly over the ivory keys that night, as surely as they moved over the ivory of her skin in the wee small hours of the morning, their bodies locked together in a rhythm older than time, her soft whispers and sighs sweeter than any music could ever hope to be.
It might be for one night only, Warrick reflected, as she slept in his arms, but it was more than he could ever have hoped for.