A/N: More sadness. I promise I don't enjoy doing this to you.
Spoilers for episode 9x2, The Happy Place.
My phone rang the moment I finished Scott's interrogation. My stomach flipped at the name on the caller I.D.
"Hi," I answered softly.
Her reply came strained and tearful.
"Hey."
"Honey," I said, stopping in my tracks. "Is everything okay?"
"I wanted to stop by the lab and see you in person, but, my flight got changed," she said. "My cab is waiting for me."
"You're… you're leaving?" I repeated, feeling my stomach abandon its summersaults and sink straight to my feet. This was… unexpected. The fearful idea of Sara leaving again had always been in the back of my mind, but I pushed it so far back with hopeful thoughts of her coming back to stay that it almost seemed like a joke, a remote possibility. I wasn't ready to let her go just yet. I needed her.
"I meant what I told you," she replied remorsefully. "I can't stay here."
"Losing you once was hard enough, Sara," I said. "Losing you twice… I don't know if I can take it."
"What do you expect me to do?" she whispered. "I can't stay here. You can't leave… what am I supposed to do?"
"What I said earlier," I started suddenly. "About Pam Adler and her husband. Sara, I… I wasn't talking about us. I don't want you to leave me."
"Don't make this harder," she pleaded. "This hurts me too, Gil."
"Sara," I said softly, but firmly. "What I said after the funeral… about needing you… it was true. I needed you. I still do."
"I love you," she said tentatively. "You know I do. I just… I just can't."
A lingering paused stretched between us, making the physical distance between us feel already much wider than it was. She would soon be much further away, and there was no way of knowing when I would see her again.
"What's going to happen?" I asked quietly.
"I don't know," she replied.
It was selfish of me to ask her to stay. I knew that. She already seemed so much stronger than she had when she'd left Vegas last year, but she wasn't nearly ready to come back and deal with it all over again. I could see that.
The thought of staying here without her was unbearable. Work, home, even Hank… none of it seemed the same without her. And it was wearing on me.
And yet… I couldn't bring myself to leave. There were so many things stopping me, some that I recognized and some that I still couldn't. But looming over everything was what had always kept me from Sara in the first place: fear.
She was right. There was nothing either of us could do.
"I can call you when my plane lands," she suggested quietly.
"Oh," I said distractedly. "Sure. Yeah, you should… you should do that."
"This doesn't have to be… it… you know," she said. "You can take some time. Figure out what it really is that you want. One week, or two, or even more… it won't be too late."
I mulled over the option she had just given me. The out. While a part of me probably knew that I would never be able to take that giant leap of faith, this was far better than the other option.
And like I said, I wasn't ready to lose her.
"Okay," I told her softly. "I'll… I'll think about it."
"Okay."
"Bye, Sara."
"Bye."
I waited several beats, my heart thumping in my chest.
"Sara!" I called.
"What?"
"I…" I trailed off, my mouth opening and closing. "Nothing. Have a safe flight."
"Goodbye, Gil," she whispered.
I closed my phone and stared at the blank screen for several minutes while the magnitude of the word washed over me. Another moment, another change in my life.
I was really starting to hate goodbyes.