Title: Manilla
Author: ScullyAsTrinity
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Forty-eight hours previous she had been single and alone in her Las Vegas apartment, cleaning her oven.
Writing this on a Greyhound bus, coming home to Boston from NYC. Please forgive me. Thanks Marlou for the beta… and Lauren for looking it over.
Sweat pooled around the back of her knees. She hated that feeling, that slick with salt, sticky and downright gross feeling. It would have been different if the air had been dry, but it was humid, stunningly so. Honestly, Sara felt like some sort of moisture laden city creature who longed for the respite and beauty of the countryside.
Not that she didn't love New York, she just hated the heat which was somewhat of an irony seeing as how she moved to Vegas, where the average temperature was something to cringe at.
Even at one o'clock in the afternoon you could see the steam billowing from the sewers below, product of the ever-crowded subway.
People were sitting at restaurants on the street sipping their sunrises, their martinis; in New York, happy hour was twenty-four hours a day, which made sense for the city that never sleeps.
A foreign sound registered in her ears, the flip-flopping of her sandals, the rubber thwack of them against her skin vaguely comforting. It reminded her of the beach, of the ocean. For once, she had a skirt on, a billowy thing, made of silk and something equally as exotic.
Either way, it slid around her legs, slinking in between her legs just as she slinked back and forth through the masses of people.
But the people and the weather did nothing to deter her amazing, unearthly mood.
Forty-eight hours previous she had been single and alone in her Las Vegas apartment, cleaning her oven. She'd cleaned it the week previous and while she hadn't baked anything she was bored and didn't feel like braving the hot summer sun to go for a run. Well... that was more of an excuse; she just didn't want to see people. Her desire for outside relationships had waned shortly after they'd managed to pull Nick from his desert grave. She couldn't explain why it had affected her so negatively; she should have been embracing life, not shunning it.
On that particular evening, she had received a phone call.
Grissom had been giddy and aloof and it had pissed her off. She was nearing the end of her patience with the man and if his tone had been any sweeter she surely would have snapped.
He asked her to pack a bag, just please pack a bag and not to ask any questions. Her sigh was laden with irritation. "Why," she had asked, wanting to do nothing more than clean and sleep. He'd nearly begged her and she could almost hear his pout through the phone.
Something was up, something had to be; he was inviting her somewhere... mid-life crisis perhaps.
So, for the sake of humoring him, she shoved some clothes into a bag and waited for him on her stoop. He showed up ten minutes later, sunglasses on and a wide smile gracing his face. Twenty years, that's how much younger he looked. She was stunned, confused, upset and just slightly excited.
She had made to walk down the steps but he jumped out of his Pathfinder and took her front steps two at a time, stopping before her. He was still smiling, but his grin had grown and she could see the twinkle in his eyes even through the sunglasses. Sara had, of course, meant to ask what exactly was up, but he kissed her gently, there on her stoop.
Floored would have been putting it mildly; she was somewhere under the floorboards, the basement perhaps. Nearly two minutes passed before she had shaken the brain cells in her head back to life and kissed him back with a passion that was muted by her emotions for this man, this man.
If she had expected words she would have stopped him, but somehow, the way his tongue stroked over hers, the way he held her delicately, stroked her cheeks and her hair... she knew all she needed to. Even in her head she felt compelled to speak to him, to hear him speak to her, but the bond he'd created, the unspoken connection was there and she was wondering if speech would actually break it.
Their kisses eventually staved off, ending in pecks, breaths coming fast and moist. "We're going away... for a bit, you and I," Grissom explained as he jogged down the steps to the car. Sara followed, something new and springy in her step, something anticipatory.
"And where would that be?" she asked, tossing her moderate bag into the back seat. Grissom simply smiled at her and turned the car east, heading to what she would eventually discover was McCaren airport. Her eyes became like saucers when he turned his vehicle into the lane for long-term parking. "I, uh... where are we going Grissom? I need to know..." Sara didn't face him, simply looked out the window, aghast.
His smile was tiny, a whisper of the grin he'd graced her with earlier. "Are you still staying up days at a time, Sara?" When she didn't respond, he pressed on. "Do you sleep?"
"No," she responded slowly, drawing out the word as it was tinged slightly with suspicion.
"Then," he said, handing the man in the parking booth a fifty, "I think it's only appropriate that we see if you can rest in the city that never sleeps." He peeked over to gauge her reaction and was floored to find her eyes still wide, but a smile growing on her lips.
This, she decided, was part of her healing process, one that she should have embarked on long before she even came to Vegas, one that needed to be completed before she could allow herself to live again. It was a healing process for him too, an opportunity to reorganize his entire system, tossing old files and beginning brand new ones.
Sara fell asleep against his shoulder on the plane ride even though the first class seating was gloriously roomy. He'd stroked her hair and ordered a strong drink, telling himself for the last time that day that his idea was a good one, that she could make him whole again.
As he watched her sleep, he knew that she was destined to wake up with him, not just beside him but with him every day.
That solidified her place in his heart and the cast iron fortress that had once kept her out tightened around the memory of her, locking her up safely in his heart.
JFK was crowded and noisy and smelled faintly of pretzels and she embraced the change in atmosphere with just a slight bit of apprehension. A taxi to their hotel, one that he had reserved two nights before in the desperate hope that she would go with him. Even if she hadn't, he would have taken the journey in solitude, plummeting once more inside himself amongst millions of people who didn't know his face.
He was so glad Sara had gone with him.
Theirs was a suite, a large posh hotel room on the twentieth floor of the hotel. The sun was setting low over the city when he had pulled the blinds apart, walking her to the window to take in the full majesty of the bustling metropolis below. "It breathes, this entire city breathes... doesn't it?" His voice was low and held the tone of one truly amazed. "Maybe we can learn to breathe again too."
"Is that why I'm here? To help you find yourself again?"
Grissom sighed, his arms wrapped snuggly around her waist. "I wanted you here with me so we can find each other," he murmured.
"Again," he amended and kissed her neck like it was nothing new. Her shivered response delighted him; she couldn't stop shaking, the foreign feeling of being in his arms waning with each passing moment. Maybe that was how it was meant to be, their love. Muted and familiar, troubled and so very new.
He wanted to take her to dinner that evening, a proper date he had said, but she had walked slowly towards him and requested room service just before she took his lips with hers and pushed him down onto the bed. The last dregs of sunlight were sapped from the city as he came within her and they let their bodies cool among the millions of tiny pinpricks of light staring up at them from the city.
The butterflies that had resided in her stomach were still there as they ate dinner on the bed, dressed in sleepwear, stealing each other's dessert. Chocolate had never tasted as good as it had being kissed off of his lips.
Those were the events that led up to them trailing down fifth avenue in the morning, hand in hand. "Never thought I'd get to see you in a skirt again," he said, successfully pulling her gaze away from the architecture and to his face. "They're amazing, by the way," Grissom muttered and smiled naughtily. Even though they'd made love only once she felt like a well-loved woman, a woman who'd been with a man for years.
It was nice, the way he swung their hands back and forth and the way he wrapped his hand around her waist as they crossed the streets.
He bought her breakfast at a little Jewish diner and made fun of her attempts at pronouncing the dishes. They drank chocolate milk instead of coffee and ordered sickeningly fattening dishes, trading with each other halfway through.
Walking... they walked so much. Uptown, downtown, Battery Park and in between. Their feet throbbed but they couldn't help wanting to beat out the cadence of the city's heartbeats on its streets; on the streets was where people were living, where lovers were kissing. The streets of the city was where life was happening and as they walked they soaked it all in, talking sporadically but mostly listening to the buzz that was a thousand voices making the city breathe.
Merlot touched their palates over dinner at a restaurant that most people couldn't afford. He held her hand over the table and stroked her skin with his thumb, wanting to fall in love with her between the soft music and delicate candlelight and doing so... all over again.
Neon greeted them after dinner, turning them green and pink as they ambled through Times Square. Brilliant lights shined above them and they allowed themselves to get lost for a moment in the Technicolor dreamscape, squeezing hands as their gaze drifted up. So small, they were so small there, staring up, distinguishing sky from building from billboard.
Forty-second street was a short hike, but they made it there quickly and while they were waiting for a light to change, he bent down and kissed her neck. "I love you," he said, surprising himself. He'd wanted to say he loved the city, but since his first words were equally as true, he relaxed and let the truth of them settle in his bones.
She kissed him quickly, grinning like a fool and they continued on at a leisurely pace, losing themselves in the masses and yet finding themselves, together.