A/N: I actually planned to retire from fan fiction, but after seeing the trailer for season nine, this story wouldn't leave me alone. I'm pretty sensitive to spoilers because I've already seen 9.01, and I don't want to ruin anything for anyone. So while I don't think I've given up much more than the trailers have, this is still a spoiler alert for "Good Bye and Good Luck" in season eight right through the first three episodes of season nine. –jh
x x x x x x x
TOO MUCH TO BEAR
By ProWriter11
On the night after Warrick's funeral, Grissom made Sara comfortable on the familiar king-sized bed in the unfamiliar master bedroom of his new apartment, the place he had taken after she left for San Francisco because he could no longer stand coming home to what had been theirs for more two years.
It was worse than finding her gone.
It was the knowledge that she might never come back.
The prospect of spending the rest of his life alone amid the memories of her.
She was back now. But she had come back for Warrick. Not for him. And he had no idea if she would stay. Or for how long. It was a question he couldn't bring himself to ask. A question it wouldn't be fair to ask, for the emotions of the loss of a good friend, a family member, were too new and too raw and too painful. They created an atmosphere in which such questions should not be asked or answered.
Because there were so many questions, Grissom was reluctant – terrified, in truth – to sleep beside Sara in their bed. After so many empty months without her, he needed her close. He needed to hold her. He ached to make love to her. But he couldn't allow himself to succumb to those needs. He couldn't allow himself to bring the memories of what had been back into sharp focus. Otherwise, when she left again, as she would inevitably, it would mean long weeks and months of agony while the memories softened and faded again.
While the new pain subsided.
Better not to have her at all than to endure the withdrawal later.
So when she was settled in the bedroom, he kissed her gently on the forehead, bid her good night and walked toward the door, headed for the big leather couch in the living room.
"Grissom? Gil? Where are you going?" she asked, her voice filled with surprise.
"I'm going to sleep on the couch," he said. "It will be easier for both of us. We'll talk tomorrow." He turned to face her and saw the uncertainty and hurt in her eyes. "I love you, Sara, with all my heart."
He turned and left, before he could change his mind.
The ache in his chest was unbearable.
x x x x x x x
Easier?
Grissom's words made no sense to Sara.
After months of separation, how was more separation easier? How did dual sleeping arrangements make anything easier? What was he thinking?
Sara watched the empty bedroom door frame blur behind a shimmer of her tears. She stared and willed him to come back. He didn't.
She slumped onto the pillows and wondered what really lay behind his actions.
Warrick's funeral had been only hours earlier. Perhaps he thought if they made love it somehow would mock Warrick's memory. Perhaps he wanted an appropriate interval of mourning.
No, that wasn't like Grissom. He hated funerals, which were less about honoring the dead than comforting the living. He believed people should be able to understand that dying was simply an unavoidable part of living. But he had been particularly close to Warrick, and it was clear to her that Warrick's senseless death, and the circumstances that brought it about, weighed on him to the point of nearly breaking him.
So perhaps he simply wanted to be alone with his grief.
She would understand that, except she was grieving, too, and would have liked to feel some comfort from him.
She sighed. She couldn't compare her feelings to his. It wasn't fair. Warrick had become her friend, but he hadn't been as close to her as he had been to Grissom. Warrick hadn't died on her watch. Warrick hadn't drawn his last breath in her arms. Warrick hadn't left his blood drenching her clothes.
If he needed some space, she would give it to him.
Still, something about Grissom's words preyed on her mind. He had said they would talk tomorrow. He had told her he loved her with all his heart.
He had not welcomed her home.
And she realized something with sudden clarity:
Grissom believed she had come home only for Warrick, not for him.
That idea had to hurt him.
She tried to imagine what he was feeling: The agony of being so close to her, able to touch her, to feel her breathe, to feel her blood pulse at her throat, all the while thinking she wasn't ready to take him back into her arms, that she might never be ready.
No wonder he didn't want to lie with her in bed.
He believed she wouldn't be staying.
He knew he would have to watch her walk away. Again.
And the prospect was too much for him to bear.
x x x x x x x
On the first full day after Warrick's funeral, they did talk. But it didn't take them anywhere. Both were emotionally and physically spent with a chaser of sleep deprivation. So they spent a lot of time just catching up with each other's lives. Nothing heavy.
They walked with Hank in the park. They went for a drive to Lake Mead. They sat on rocks and looked east out over the blue water.
They held hands, tentatively.
Except for the embrace they shared in Grissom's office when Sara arrived from San Francisco, except for the good-morning peck on the cheek he gave her before breakfast, they hadn't touched one another until he reached over and took her hand at the lake.
His touch sent an electric jolt through her. If he felt anything, he hid it well.
The thought came to her unbidden and unwanted.
Perhaps she had been wrong.
Perhaps he avoided intimacy because the months of separation had deadened what he once felt for her. He said he still loved her. But did he still want her?
That thought was too much for her to bear.
x x x x x x x
On the second night after the funeral he broached the subject tentatively as they ate an Italian meal at a place that had been one of their favorite restaurants back in the time they referred to only as, "Before."
"How long can you stay?" he asked.
He had thought all day how to best ask the question without it sounding as if he were pressuring her. Five words. They left the door open for her to respond that she was staying forever. But he knew she wasn't.
So they left open the possibility for an answer more finite.
He wanted more than anything for her to say, "forever."
If he couldn't have that, he was torn at the prospect of the next choice.
If she said she would stay for a month, it would be the most glorious month of his life, four weeks to love Sara again, to convince her that "forever" was a better answer.
But he would rather see her leave the next morning that to have her for a month and have to endure again the excruciating pain of separation he'd felt the first time.
So it was with a profound combination of sadness and relief when she replied, "I have a couple of things to do here. I have a reservation back to California on Thursday."
Two days.
They had only two days.
Oh God, she's going to be gone again in two days!
Thank God, I can get through two days without completely losing myself in her again.
Can't I?
I have to. I don't think I could bear it, otherwise.
x x x x x x x
On the second full day after Warrick's funeral, Sara left right after breakfast. She had people to see and some things to do. When she returned to the apartment, Grissom could see she was shaken.
She went to the kitchen.
"Do you have any tea?"
"Of course," he said. "First cupboard to the right of the stove."
She found several canisters, picked on and started to heat water.
"You could nuke it faster," he said.
She shook her head.
"Changes the taste," she said. "At least I think so."
He moved near her, leaned an elbow on the countertop.
"I think so, too," he said. "Wanna talk about today?"
Without looking at him, she inhaled a deep breath and let it go as a sigh.
"I sat with Tom Adler for a couple of hours. You remember. His wife Pamela was kidnapped, raped, shot and left for dead. She's been in a persistent vegetative state ever since. He finally decided to turn off the respirator. He asked me to be there."
He waited.
"It took him nearly a decade to come to terms with the fact that his wife wasn't going to come back to him. It was so hard for him. You think you have everything you want in life, and circumstances jerk it away from you. And for a time, you think it's all going to get better. That you're going to be able to recreate what you lost. It's very hard to deal with the realization that your life, the life you dreamed of, is gone forever."
Grissom's chest suddenly felt hollow, as though his heartbeat and his ability to breathe had been sucked from him. There was serious physical pain. His mouth went dry, his throat parched.
Sara was speaking in metaphors.
She was trying to tell him …
Oh, no. Please, Sara.
"He asked me to stay with him as she died. I did, and for a while afterward, while he cried," she said. "I left him with his parents, and hers, to start trying to build a new life. But I don't think he's got the strength for it. I think he's a man destroyed."
I know how he feels.
"There's too much death here, Grissom," she said. "I can't come back. I can't stay.
"It's too much for me to bear."
x x x x x x x
On the third night after Warrick's funeral, they slept separately again.
Sara asked him to share the bed. He shook his head and turned away. He had not spoken a word to her about the Adlers. He had not mentioned her decision about Las Vegas. He had not brought up their future, or their lack of one. She suspected it was because she would be leaving the following afternoon. And she had told him she wouldn't be coming back. She was sure he felt there was nothing to talk about. She felt sick for him.
He got to the bedroom door.
He turned to look at her.
The loss and sadness in his eyes shredded her heart.
"Sleep well," he said. She thought maybe she heard his voice break.
She lay on her back in the dark for hours. Nothing remotely like sleep approached her.
She got up and drank a glass of water.
She started back for bed and stopped. She saw the glow of a light beyond the door.
She followed it.
She found Grissom sitting on the sofa, Hank at his feet. The dog's baleful eyes moved from one to the other. He seemed to sense that he would be losing at least one of them again.
Sara sat beside Grissom.
"Can't sleep?" she asked.
He replied with a nearly imperceptible shake of his head.
"You could lay back and just rest," she said.
This time she got no reaction at all.
"Then talk to me, Gil," she said. "Please. Just talk to me."
"I don't know what to say."
"Then tell me how you feel."
"Lost."
"Lost?"
"Alone. Again."
She took his right hand in both of hers. She massaged the back of his hand with her thumb. He squeezed his eyes shut and pulled away.
"Please, don't," he said.
She removed her hands and muscled a tear off her cheek.
"Do you suppose there's anything left of us?" she said.
"I thought there was. I hoped there was."
She looked at him. He wouldn't return her gaze.
"Gil, I still love you, maybe now more than ever," she said. "Over the last few months I've come to understand how empty my life is without you. I'm not ready to give up. I want there to be an us again. Forever."
"So do I," Grissom said, as earnest as she'd ever heard him. "But you can't stay. I can't go. And there has to be more than weekend plane rides between us. That's not enough for me. I want to be married to you, Sara. I thought you wanted to be married to me. How do we make that work when we're nearly 600 miles apart?"
He brow creased and her mouth turned down as it always did when she was upset and sad.
"I don't know," she said.
"Go to bed," he told her. "You need to get some rest. You have a long trip h-home tomorrow."
This time she knew she heard his voice crack.
She got up.
He stretched out on the sofa and threw an arm over his face so she couldn't see his eyes. She badly wanted to see his eyes. She was afraid he was crying. She had never seen him cry. She never wanted to. He had more emotional strength than anyone she'd ever known. If he were crying, it would mean his spirit had truly shattered.
She didn't think either of them could bear that.
x x x x x x x
Sometime during the early-morning hours on the third full day after Warrick's funeral, sleep caught up with Sara.
Sometime just before dawn she half awakened to the feel of the bed sagging beside her, to the feel of his arms wrapping her up and drawing her to his body, to the warmth of his breath on her neck. He said nothing. She said nothing.
After a time, they both slept.
When she opened her eyes again, the sun was fully up.
He knew she had awakened because he remembered how her body moved and stretched as sleep ended for her.
He held her tightly, giving no hint that he had awakened 30 minutes earlier. He hadn't stirred. He hadn't gotten up to use the bathroom. He didn't want to miss a second of having her asleep in his arms.
He knew it could well be the last time.
Ever.
She turned to face him. When her eyes fell on his, he shuddered. He couldn't imagine life without those eyes. He couldn't imagine life without the mind behind the eyes, without the body beneath the eyes, without the love he found in the eyes.
Neither of them said anything.
Both knew when they got out of this bed, it would be over.
"This is funny, you know?" Sara said.
"I find nothing at all remotely amusing about it, Sara," he said. "I don't want to let you go, but I can't hold you. I think we both feared it would come to this. Our worst nightmare. The last thing we get to share."
"I didn't mean funny, as in amusing," she said. "Or maybe I did. We're two adults who love each other, who want to make a life together, who committed to be together, and we can't make it happen. If it weren't happening to you and me, yeah, it would be a little funny."
"It's Thursday," he said. "You're getting on a plane this afternoon. I'm not laughing."
"I'm not getting on a plane this afternoon, Grissom," she said. "I cancelled the reservation. I am going back to California, but not today."
He propped himself up on an elbow. "Why?"
"Let's make some coffee and talk about it," she said. "We have a lot to talk about, a lot to figure out." She shook her head. "Well, maybe not a lot. Maybe just one thing."
"What's that?"
"How to make us work. I won't give up if you don't."
"Never," he said.
"That's a landmark," she said. "Our first total agreement. The rest should be easy."
He smiled, and she returned the smile.
He leaned in and kissed her, but she pushed him away gently.
"Can we agree to one other thing?" she said.
"What?"
"Mouthwash and toothpaste before kissing in the morning?"
He smiled. "I can do that." He shrugged. "I need a bladder break, too."
Ten minutes later, Hank was in the back yard and their naked bodies were tangled up together in the bedroom. The bed was three feet away, but Grissom had Sara perched on the edge of her dresser, and she had Grissom captured within her encircling legs.
He plundered her with his fingers and his mouth. His right thumb massaged her clit while three fingers of his right hand stroked every bundle of nerves inside her. She stroked his cock and smeared his precum on its head before bringing her fingers to her mouth to taste him. He watched her with dark eyes full of desire and then followed her lead with his own fingers, first sucking on them himself and then finger-fucking her mouth.
As his right hand played with her lips and tongue, his left thumb and forefinger teased her clit until she could hold back no longer.
He got his fingers back inside her just fast enough to feel her vaginal walls contract in a series of tremors that seemed to have no end. As the aftershocks began to subside, began to urge him on.
"Get inside me. Inside me. Now," she demanded.
He fitted the head of his cock inside her and watched her face. When her eyes demanded action, he rammed her as deeply as he could go.
"Please fuck me, Gil," she said in his ear. "Hard. Fast. Deep. Go. Go."
She raised her legs to rest on his shoulders and leaned back against the mirror to give him all the access he needed to screw her silly. They built together to an explosive finish that literally brought tears to Sara's eyes and left Grissom breathless.
As the tremors began to subside, they simply looked at one another, wincing in pleasure with each aftershock, each letting the other see just how great the fuck had been.
Sara noticed that Grissom's eyes remained dark and passionate. His cock wasn't softening much. And he wasn't pulling out of her.
She smiled.
"Are you really ready to go again?" she asked.
He smiled and nodded.
"You want to fuck again?" she said.
He shook his head.
"I want to make love to you this time, slow and fine, to set a goal for ourselves."
"What goal?" she said.
"We should try to plant in our minds just how much fun this is, how we empower one another, not just in the bedroom but in everything we do in life, how we feed on one another and complete one another. Then, when we're on the patio drinking coffee and talking about our future, we'll know what we're fighting for."
"I think that's a wonderful idea," Sara said.
Grissom bend his head to kiss her throat.
Just before he lost himself in her again he said, "I couldn't bear anything less."