"Amends"
by faketreefinger
--
"Gil Grissom, were you really going to walk right past me?"
The corner of his mouth turned upward in amusement when he recognized the feminine voice behind him and he turned on his heels to acknowledge her. She began walking up the aisle of the large lecture hall, a teasing smirk on her face.
"Apparently I was, but not on purpose. I assure you," he responded with a kind smile, shifting the heavy laptop bag to his right shoulder. "Hello, Jane."
People bustled around them to take their seats, preparing for the next speaker, but the woman nearing him paid them no attention as she gathered Grissom in a warm hug. He couldn't help but breathe in the alluring floral scent of her shoulder-length, brown hair, and he smiled despite his slight discomfort.
"Hello to you," she murmured in his ear and pulled back, still smiling. "You look great! The beard's a nice touch."
Grissom shrugged bashfully and nodded his thanks. "The years have been kind to you," he responded in honesty.
She was always an attractive woman, probably the most attractive woman he had ever actually dated. But it had been around ten years since he had last seen her and, he noted, she really didn't look any older. Her features were still soft and pleasing and he had always admired the way her hazel eyes lit up when she was delighted by something.
"Always the gentleman," Jane said with a grin, obviously flattered by his remark. "C'mon let's get outta here and catch up." She gently guided him up the aisle and out the door with barely masked excitement.
"How've you been?" he asked her as they walked the hallway outside the lecture hall. "I assume you're here for the conference?"
"Well kinda. I've been teaching Bioinformatics here at NYU for the past three years," she said easily, walking shoulder-to-shoulder with him, her hands shoved easily in her jacket.
He raised his eyebrows and looked over at her. "Really? You? A teacher?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she laughed and added, "And I like it. Can you believe that?"
This surprised him. She had never liked being around people when he worked with her in Minneapolis and had stuck to lab work, mainly DNA analysis and profiling.
"No, I can't. You've changed. I thought people annoyed you."
"They did. Maybe that's why you and I got along so well," she said and bumped shoulders with him teasingly.
Grissom shrugged. "Perhaps."
He and Jane had dated for almost two months before he began distancing himself. She had broken it off as he had predicted she would, but their friendship hadn't suffered much. Truth was, while he couldn't deny an attraction on a physical level and she was fun to be around, he had never developed feelings beyond that and being with her had made him sad. Not to mention, she had never been quite the workaholic he had been.
"Let's get some dinner," suggested Jane softly, stopping beside him. She rested her hand on his upper arm and looked at him, a small grin formed on her lips and her hazel eyes danced in the dimming sunlight of New York City.
Grissom gave a slight smile, considering her suggestion. If he had thought it would just be a dinner between two friends, two old colleagues, the answer would be quite simple. But the way her eyes narrowed and lingered on his, the way her right hand lagged lightly on his bicep, and the way she subtly bit her lip, gave him pause.
Her eyebrows rose in question and he clenched his jaw, wondering why he was even considering this. Deciding—or rationalizing rather—that he was reading too much into it he conceded with a nod.
Besides, he was single. And he knew her. And he didn't have anywhere better to be until his flight took off for Las Vegas, Nevada the next morning. No, he rationalized, there was nothing wrong with dinner.
"Where?" he asked with a small smile, shifting his laptop bag again.
The moment Jane squeezed his arm and gave him a pleased, playful smile, Sara Sidle, his unrequited love across the country, crossed his mind and he gave an inner sigh, wondering if he was going to be able to get her out of his head for the rest of the night.
--
Two hours later, Grissom and Jane were seated at a table in a restaurant in Greenwich Village, talking comfortably about past and current times. Grissom found himself drinking a little too much wine, but felt that if he didn't, he would think too much and wouldn't enjoy himself at all. So he thought less, poured himself and Jane another glass, and drank it down as if it were pleasant-tasting medicine.
"Las Vegas! God, I have such a hard time imagining you there!" she said with a laugh, taking a bite out of her herb-crusted salmon.
Grissom cocked his head to the side curiously, fingering the stem of the wine glass. "Why's that?"
She looked to the side in thought as she finished chewing. "I don't know, I guess because Vegas is so…" she trailed off, looking for the right words.
"So?"
"In your face!" she said on a laugh and drank her wine. "It's so blatantly shameless and loud and…" her hands waved about the air and a scowl set on her face as she searched for the words, "And so… well, not you at all, let's just say that."
"Well what city would you say is me?" he asked, amused.
"Somewhere more boring."
"Thank you," said, sipping his wine and feigning offense.
"Like, anywhere in Montana," she laughed and he couldn't help the small grin forming on his face as he shook his head and chewed his asparagus.
Suddenly, he felt a strange sensation on his leg and realized, with no small amount of shock, that she was running her foot up his calf. His eyebrows rose slightly and she sipped her Merlot with a silent, secret smile.
The vibration of his cell phone in his pants pocket made him jump slightly and her foot dropped. He pulled out the cell phone and muttered a sorry as he glanced at the screen. Sara Sidle…
He could feel a small smile creeping up from inside of him, but he repressed it and looked up at Jane with an apologetic expression.
"I have to take this, I'm sorry."
She shrugged easily and said, "It's okay, go ahead."
He lifted himself from the table and headed towards the alcove in the back where the bathrooms were located. Flipping the phone open and letting the smile grace his face, he answered, "Hello?"
"Grissom, hey," Sara's voice reverberated in his ear. "I'm not interrupting anything am I?"
"Uh, no, no, not at all," he said with a glance in Jane's direction. "What's up?"
"Well, I'm in your office and I'm looking for the Davidson case file. You said it would be on your desk, but I don't see it."
"Oh." He reluctantly acknowledged to himself his disappointment that the phone call was purely work related.
"Geez, you have a lot of mail waiting for you here."
"I usually do when I go away for any length of time," he said with a sigh, not looking forward to the barrage of letters and paperwork that was piling up on his desk. "Maybe I left it in my desk. Look in middle right drawer."
He heard shuffling and after a moment a victorious "ah-ha!"
"Found it?"
"Yep."
"Good."
There was a pause and he heard Sara clear her throat. "So how's your vacation?"
"It's not a vacation. It's a conference," he responded, leaning against the wall and shoving his hand into the pocket of his black slacks. He threw another glance in Jane's direction, suddenly feeling guilty that he would much rather be having an awkward conversation with Sara, than an easy one with Jane.
"Okay, fine, how's the conference?" He imagined her rolling her eyes and he smiled.
He let the smile show in his voice when he responded, "It's been… kind of boring to be honest."
"That's too bad."
There was another pause as Grissom thought of another, safe topic that would keep her on the phone. Suddenly remembering that Nick had only been back for a few days since his horrifying incident, he decided to inquire about their mutual colleague and friend.
"How's Nick doing?" he asked slowly.
"Nick is… well, Nick is Nick. You can kind of tell he's still on edge, but he just takes it all in stride," Sara said, her voice suddenly low and soft.
"I'd expect nothing else from him. He's always been that way."
Sara hummed her agreement and another pause followed.
"Well, I should get back to work," she said. "So we'll be seeing you tomorrow night then?"
"Yeah. I'll be back tomorrow night," he confirmed and added softly, "Goodnight, Sara."
To his confusion, she didn't answer right away and he wondered if she already hung up. But a small, quiet "'Night, Griss," came across the line and he smiled, flipping the cell phone shut slowly.
He returned to the table, slightly guilt-ridden and unaware of how long he had been gone. Jane was staring out the window at the dark city street, swirling the half-full wine glass in her hand.
"I'm very sorry about that," he told her, sitting back down in his seat. "I didn't mean to be rude, but—"
"Work, right?" she asked good-naturedly, a gleam still in her eye.
Grissom downed the rest of his wine and nodded.
--
"Come on up and see my place," Jane said casually as they stood outside her vast apartment building in Greenwich Village. She ascended the steps without waiting for him to reject her and so he followed, vaguely aware of his propensity to control himself.
He was slightly tipsy, he had to admit, but he reminded himself that he had purposely drank that wine to take the edge off and that it had done its purpose and he felt remarkably light as he followed her in the elevator, down her hallway and through her doorway.
She stopped as the door clicked shut and held her hands out with exaggeration. "My humble abode! Ya like?"
"It's spacious," he commented, moving further into the room. "Yes, I like it."
"Thanks!' she said cheerily and moved into the kitchen, flicking the lights on. "Can I get you something? More wine, perhaps?"
Grissom gave a short laugh and shook his head, shrugging out of his blazer and rolling up the sleeves of his light blue dress shirt. "No more wine for me, thank you."
"Make yourself comfortable," she told him as she moved past him and into the bedroom.
Grissom ignored the comment, almost immediately eager to leave. His eyes scanned the modern decorations about the room and they settled on her neatly arranged bookshelf. His lips quirked upward as his fingers danced over the bindings. Mostly biology texts, arranged by size on the tall shelves.
"Discovering Genomics, Proteomics, and Bioinformatics," he muttered to himself one of the titles of the books.
"Wanna borrow it?" came a voice from behind him. It was a slightly sultry, slightly amused voice and Grissom gulped, not wanting to turn around. He did anyway and the look on Jane's face was compelling and startling. She was seducing him, no doubt about it, he thought, and he suddenly felt rather powerless.
"I don't think I'd have the time to read it. But thank you," he replied, his voice low as she neared him, a seductive grin on her face. His eyes darted to her lips and he watched her tongue sweep over them in one short motion.
She was face to face with him, raising herself on her toes, her hands coming up to slide over his chest and behind his neck, her lips getting closer and closer to his and he wasn't stopping her. Sara's face, a broad and happy smile, bombarded his thoughts as he closed his eyes and let Jane's lips cover his.
And he remembered…
About a month after he met Sara, he was back in Las Vegas, emailing her and thinking of her far too much for comfort when a pleasant and witty American Literature professor from WLVU asked him to join her for dinner and then asked him to join her in her apartment. And seduced him, despite the fact that he had been slightly distracted throughout most of the date.
The literature teacher had kissed him with force and desperation and he had kissed back. He had paid attention to her body and had been gentlemanly. He had been slow when she wanted slow and fast when she wanted fast. But
the moment he had slid inside of her warm heat, Sara's face had entered into his mind and wouldn't exit. Guilty, oh so guiltily, his enjoyment had heightened the moment he had stopped trying to forget about her. He had just let it be and pretended. Yes, he had pretended that the woman he was having sex with was another woman. He had never thought he would be that guy, but there he was, wishing that the writhing, moaning woman beneath him was Sara Sidle. Beautiful, gap-toothed Sara Sidle that lived in another state and he may never actually see again. The literature teacher said his name and came around him and he just kept on pretending.
And when he came inside her, well, he was definitely pretending then and he made sure not to say anything. No one's name escaped his lips and when he rolled off of her, sweaty and thirsty, the sadness immediately replaced the pleasure.
Jane was unknowingly evoking the same response in his body as her lips crashed hungrily over his. He felt a moan vibrating his tongue as she pulled his body close to hers and pushed them both up against the bookshelf. His body was responding, no mistake about that, but he was still thinking about Sara. He was thinking about her so strongly that he was afraid he would speak her name and the idea mortified him so intensely that he regained control and pushed Jane away from him.
"I can't do this, Jane," he whispered huskily and even he had to admit it sounded rather unconvincing. He looked her straight in the eyes, willing Sara's face to disappear but his nerves were still on edge, he was still aroused, and he could still see her standing before him.
He wanted it to be Sara.
Jane just grinned, rather wickedly, and neared him again. Her lips hovered salaciously over his and his eyes widened and his nerves jumped as her right hand cupped his erection lightly. He bit back a moan, but closed his eyes.
"Certainly feels like you can," she whispered against his lips and kissed him again. Selfishly, he let her for a moment, but when she nipped his bottom lip he was brought back to reality and he pushed her away gently.
"Behave," he told her. "You're drunk."
Jane continued grinning and stepped away from him. A soft laugh escaped her throat and she shrugged. "Yeah, maybe a little. Aren't you?"
"No."
"Good grief, Gil, would you just relax," she said with a hint of exasperation and a hint of humor as she crossed the room and entered the kitchen again. "I know you're leaving tomorrow. I'm only after you for your body."
She winked at him before opening the refrigerator. Grissom couldn't help grin a little at her loose, casual tone as he mentally and physically composed himself. It had been many years since he had been even that physically intimate with a woman and his body's urge to continue was compelling.
But Sara's face, thoughts of her body trembling under his, her moans of pleasure soft in his ear… they weren't going away no matter how attractive Jane was. She just wasn't Sara and it wasn't fair for her. It had become even more difficult, especially since the turmoil of Nick's abduction, to deny how strongly he felt for Sara and he had admitted to himself that he really wanted no one but her. He had yet to figure out what to do about it. Having sex with Jane wouldn't solve anything or help him at all and the brief pleasure wouldn't be worth the sadness that would inevitably encompass him.
No matter how badly his body wanted it.
Jane swept back through the room, her long skirt flowing back and forth and kicked off her shoes. She handed him one of the water bottles in her hand and smiled. When he didn't return the smile, hers faded and she looked at him with sudden dismay.
"Oh, God, you aren't seeing someone are you? I hadn't even considered—"
"No," he cut her off, "I'm not." He could feel his eyes darting conspicuously and he knew how pensive and distracted he looked, but didn't seem to care.
Jane gave a small, curious smile. "Oh."
"If I were seeing someone, we wouldn't have gotten this far," he said with a thankful smile as he took the bottle of water from her hand.
Jane merely hummed her acknowledgement and took a seat on her plush, microfiber couch. She relaxed and propped her feet up and Grissom noticed the stark contrast of her maroon skirt and the off-white of the cushions. He also noted how flushed Jane was as she gulped back her water. He took a long sip of his own, rather awkwardly, and could feel her eyes burning a hole in him. When he finally looked at her, her eyes were narrowed, a small but knowing smile on her lips.
"What's her name?" she asked curiously and his eyes widened.
"I told you I'm not involved with anyone," he responded immediately, his voice gruff.
"You're in love with someone though, aren't you?" Her voice was soft and unimposing, but it certainly startled him nonetheless. He could easily brush off the comment, he thought, deny it and make an exit but for some reason he couldn't which shocked him. He just looked at her silently.
"You really haven't changed at all have you?" she asked, seemingly surprised by this. Her voice was somewhat sad.
Grissom sat down on the matching, soft microfiber chair and shrugged. "I'm forty-nine years old. It's unlikely I'm going to."
Jane gave a short laugh of humor. "Well I'm forty, and I know damn well that I change a little every day. Come on, Gil, you're smart enough to know that we never stop growing."
"I know."
"And growing is changing, in a way."
"In a way."
"And if you love someone, you'll grow. You'll change. They'll change you and you'll let 'em." After a pause, she asked, "Does she know?"
Grissom allowed a moment of silence before his eyes narrowed on her a bit. "You know, I never said I was in love with anyone. Or even that I was interested in anyone."
She smiled. "You didn't have to."
Grissom studied the strange patterns on the rug beneath his shoes, unable to meet her gaze.
"Look, Gil, I've always cared about you and I've thought about you over the years. You're brilliant, you're handsome, you can cook…"
He smiled down at the carpet. "Well thank you, Jane."
"But you have no clue how to handle even the simplest of emotions." Jane was suddenly sober and looking at him with clarity and sincerity and he looked back down in discomfort.
She continued on when he didn't speak, "I'm not going to act like I know you all that well and I wouldn't dare attempt to shrink you. I'm just stating the obvious."
The bottle of water rolled between his palms and he remained lost for words.
"Have you had any even remotely serious relationships since we last saw each other?"
"No," he responded, clearing his throat.
Jane was quiet for a moment and Grissom wished he had just left when he could have, or perhaps even taken her to bed. He had never dealt well with conversations like this about himself and his jaw clenched painfully as he thought of a way to extract himself.
Jane got up from the couch, then sat back down on the cushion closest to the chair. Her hand rested on his knee lightly as she said, "Don't spend the next forty-nine years like that. Change. That's all I have to say. I'm done, I swear."
He looked at her hand on his knee. It was a friendly gesture, meant for comfort, and he was surprised at how alleviated he felt. He hadn't said much, she had done most of the talking, but he felt slightly liberated of the oppressing secret of loving Sara Sidle. Giving his head a short nod, he looked up at her and smiled. He knew the smile was sad by the way she looked at him kindly and sighed.
"I have an early flight," he finally said, getting up from the chair.
"Yeah. I'm really glad we ran into each other."
"We didn't run into each other. You stalked me," Grissom responded, the humor lacking in his voice but evident in his face.
Shamelessly, Jane shrugged. "Eh, whatever."
Grissom gave a silent chuckle.
"Who knows when I'll see you again. But it's been nice, I think," Jane said.
"Yes it has."
There was a pause as they moved to the door and Grissom shrugged his blazer back on. She looked at him warmly and pulled him in for a hug. He smiled softly into her hair and she murmured into his ear before he pulled away, "So you really aren't going to tell me her name, are you?"
He pulled back and looked at her seriously, opening the front door. "No." She looked slightly aghast and he added, "Good night, Jane. Good luck with… everything."
"You too."
Grissom smiled and stepped into the hallway. He walked about five steps before he hear her voice behind him.
"Oh, come on! It's not like I'm gonna fly to Las Vegas and out you!"
Grissom smiled to himself and stopped walking. He bit his lip and turned to her, amused by her curiosity.
"Sara. Her name is Sara."
Jane smiled softly at him and nodded. "Pretty."
Grissom nodded back. "Yeah."
He turned and left, eager to return to Las Vegas. Eager to make a change.
A/N: It ends there, yes, but I have no qualms about a second part. I even have it in mind and it shouldn't take long to write. I just kind of want to know how many people think it's a good ending and the rest should be left to the imagination… or how many people think a resolution is in order. Let me know! You're thoughts are muy importante! I 3 you guys.