Title: This is how it came to be.
Author: Perseid 85
Email: Scuba Doobie Doo
Rating: R (for the F-word)
Classification: Grissom/Sara
Archive: With author's permission
Summary: The beginning of a relationship.
Legalities: I don't own anyone or anything.
We met at some God forsaken symposium. One of those stupid things they make you go to for credits. I remember it so clearly; the first time I saw him. We all remember everything, we CSIs. That's our job after all. To remember and catalogue and notice the minute details in everything. It's fine really. Fine until it gets into your personal life and rips you apart because memories have razor sharp edges. You've got to be careful which ones you touch.
The first time I saw him… He was standing in front of some LCD projector and was smattered with a rainbow of light. He was extraordinary and distinguished, and, suddenly in front of that projector, he was beautiful as well. And it is memories of moments like that which tear you up inside. It's not like that anymore.
So, this is what happened. He called me to him. That sounds overly dramatic, and it is not how it actually was. He did call me to Vegas. That part is the truth. A difficult case, and he wanted me. I like to pretend that he called me for that other reason. The reason explained after that night at the symposium.
I approached him that night. It was San Francisco, and I was young, feeling I could do anything, the least of which was meeting this man. I went after he gave his lecture. He was wrapping the cord up on the LCD monitor using his elbow and hand. The room was empty because the talk he gave wasn't one of those of the simulating kind: insects and gestation periods.
"Hi. I'm Sara. Interesting talk you gave there."
"Hello. Gil Grissom," he held out his hand.
I don't know how it happened, but we got to dinner. It was a dive. Some trashy diner with red vinyl that my bare legs stuck to. It was uncommonly hot for the city by the bay. The air conditioning in the diner was rattling in the window. I was leaning too far, smiling too much. Now, feeling outside myself, looking back at it, I seemed desperate. Young. Eager to please. I was leaning over too far and feeling trashy as I pushed my bra strap up. Black. Calculating and watching his gaze shift. I had wondered at first if I would seem too young to him, but when he looked up, the glance he gave me wasn't a fatherly one. We hadn't ordered, but I took a leap.
"Let's go." Reaching out, and he took my hand.
It's a tough job. The memories that slice me are greater than him. There are women that glide through my mind nightly. They are beaten versions of me. Brunettes caked with blood. He's there though (he's always there), even in these dreams. He runs to any one of these battered girls and kisses them. He breathes life into them. They love him in return.
The first night in San Francisco was like that. I was dead. I was consumed with my work, completely enveloped in it. People who say their work is their life don't mean it like I did. I lived at the lab. I spent my morning sleeping on those couches. It was home more than my Ikea decorated apartment. The apartment of a twenty something but sparse, white, devoid of personality. That was the apartment that I took Grissom to. That night on my bed, the light through the blinds divided us into pieces, sliced us apart. We made love, and I imagined murders.
Which is hot I came to meet Grissom and go to live in Vegas. Which is hot I have come to be dating my boss. Not dating. We don't go out, so let me be honest. Which is hot I came to be sleeping with my boss. Fucking. They say all women want romance and maybe I have it, if romance is what you call plant deliveries and rubbing chalk dust from his face. I don't know what I have. It doesn't stop the women from dancing by at night, cracked and beaten. No one can stop that. But he's the only one who can rescue any of them at all. The only one who can (maybe) rescue me.