Afterthoughts and Forethoughts and the Northern Wind
by Camilla Sandman
Author's Notes:
This is set post-Unbearable. There's also small references to Butterflied and Nesting Dolls.
I used a few quotes scattered about here and there in the text as Grissom seems to have that kind of mind. They are briefly referred to here with their origin. Quotes are in the public domain.
"Will all great Neptune's ocean..." William Shakespeare, MacBeth
"Castles in the air..." Henrik Ibsen, The Master Builder
"It is so much easier..." William McFee
"All these days that passed..." Stig Johansson
"When the wind carries..." Norman Mailer, Advertisement for Myself on the Way Out
II
The northern wind was for once crisp and cool, sweeping in over Las Vegas from distant mountains, whispering to the land as it came. With it came a hint of fog, a thin cloak of grey to wrap all in. Even the sun was winter-pale, embers smouldering rather than firestorm blazing.
There was a gloom settling over the city. Perhaps it came with the wind. More likely it had always been there, now emerging to dance. A tango of regret and dispirit with the wind. The sky arched winter-blue above it all, lining the world.
It was therefore perhaps not surprising there had been even more murders of late. Grissom did not blame it on the wind, for he knew all too well that what lurked within humans needed no wind to come out. But he felt the hint of desolation brushing the city same as everyone else, a light winter depression for Las Vegas to bring the desperate to desperate actions.
And it was his job to pick through the afterthoughts, the evidence of actions done and often regretted when the consequences became too vividely clear.
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?
Nothing lingered like blood in memory. For all the science, the mind still preserved it better. But between memory and truth stood man, untrustworthy and self-preserving. And thus the evidence had to speak instead. It knew no lies.
Humans knew all too many.
And now he was tired. Murders solved, battles with Ecklie fought and actions all done and played out he was lost in his afterthoughts, lingering in a dark office when he should long since have gone home.
Perhaps it was the wind after all. It seemed to stir within him memories and thoughts and her, always her, as if the wind and her shared heart.
Sara.
She had shared with him her darkness and he had sympathized, felt for her, stood up for her, perhaps even alienated Catherine for her.
And yet always and forever, she came to him in an afterthought when all had been said and done already, when the conclusions had been written up and published.
He should not have hurt her. He should have managed her better, comforted her better, been better with her. He should not have gone out to dinner with someone else and let her find out through the rumour mill and not from him, with explanations and all.
He was not even sure just why he had asked Sofia out. Perhaps because she was leaving. Perhaps because there were no complications. Perhaps because he missed Catherine's friendship. Perhaps... Perhaps because it would hurt Sara.
It was a frightening thought to come to even after, a realisation that perhaps he was playing villain of own free will.
Was he becoming Dr. Lurie already? Or was he trying not to be by chasing her away the only way he knew how?
It was muddled in his mind, as if both played together and against each other. Feelings were no science, nothing he could catalogue and stamp for easier understanding. He did not know his own heart. Or perhaps he did and it was one of a coward, but he was afraid to admit it.
Castles in the air - they are so easy to take refuse in. And so easy to build, too.
Much harder to stay on the ground in the northern wind, building a life with her. Easier to let her do all the work and he none and let her tire and feel as if it had not been his fault at all. At least then he was in control, ever the analyzer.
So why did she still come to him in afterthoughts, lingering like a ghost in his mind? Had he, despite it all, not decided to let her go yet?
"Why are you sitting in the dark?"
Her voice drifted in from the door, and for a moment he thought he had only imagined it, that his ghost had spoken. But she was there, leaning against the doorframe, blocking the light from the hall from entering. A shadow in the dark she seemed, dark and fair the same.
It is so much easier to tell intimate things in the dark.
"Afterthoughts," he replied truthfully. "Why are you still here?"
"Why are you? Waiting for someone?"
Her voice hinted of bitterness, but her tone was not venomous. It would have been easier if it had. Easier to hurt her when she took it fighting, not resigned.
"No."
She looked at him, shadows playing across her face as he lit one lamp and the light feel over her. Her eyes did not mask her hurt and she did not look away.
"It was only a dinner between colleagues," he said, knowing she would realise what he was talking about.
"It still hurt."
"I'm sorry."
She nodded, whether in acceptance or merely acknowledgement he did not know. But she was beautiful and there and perhaps, perhaps despite all, she did love him still.
"Night," she said quietly, slipping out and for a moment, he saw his life go on without her, stretching on under the sun and the wind, easier, yes, but a life of afterthoughts, perhaps not life at all, just days passing, passing, passing.
All these days that passed. I did not know them to be life.
And he thought of her. Kissing her, loving her, living with her, days stretching out under the sun and the wind, complicated, yes, but life, life, life, intoxicating life.
"Sara!"
She halted and he hurried into the hall, blinking against the brighter lights assaulting him. She looked impatient, hands tucked in her coat pockets, a scarf ready to protect her against the wind and life.
"You want to... Go somewhere?" he asked. For a moment, she absolutely stared at him, searching his face intently, as if suspecting some joke.
"Not dinner," she finally said, the hint of bitterness still in her voice. He knew he could not take it away. Past wrongs did not come undone and castles in the air did not suddenly come crashing down.
"Not dinner," he agreed. "Lunch."
She smiled at him then, hesitant but genuinely, walking with him out to the lifting fog and the cold day of Las Vegas. And it was a beginning and not an afterthought, greeted by the northern wind.
When the wind carries a cry which is meaningful to human ears, it is simpler to believe the wind shares with us some part of the emotion of Being than that the mysteries of a hurricane's rising murmur reduce to no more than the random collision of insensate molecules he thought and when she asked what he was thinking, he told her.
She laughed.
And the wind kissed them as they came out and it rustled the winter day quietly into winter night, life ever passing the days.
II
The wind came back a few weeks later, tapping at the windows of her flat and waking him from sleep. The soft whisper of it mingled with her sleeping breath curling from her lips and it was the sweetest lullaby he had ever listened to.
He lay sleeping awake and listening for a while, her head tucked under his chin, her scent all around him. He traced soft patterns on her skin and felt her heartbeat echo his own.
"I thought of you," he whispered, pressing a kiss to her ear.
"Hmmm?" she murmured softly against his chest, lost somewhere between sleep and dreams.
"I thought of you first this time."
And beneath the clouds, the northern wind moved on, humming as it went.
II
"The afterthought is good, but forethought is better."
Norwegian proverb
II
FINI