A/N: In the last chapter, Sara's text message had some made up email addresses from Sara to Gris but this site doesn't publish those. Hope there was no confusion. Thanks for reading and for your encouraging words. I have the best reviewers!
RAIN
CHAPTER TWO
Grissom drove on through the night, his thoughts and emotions swirling. Hope she's OK. Hope nothing happened to her. She's already been through--been hurt--so much.
The rain started fifty miles after he crossed the California border. Hard cold rain. Gil thought back to that rainy night when Sara was pinned under that car in the desert, the rain pouring down on her. Rain, especially at night, always brought up that horrifying night in his mind.
Why couldn't I protect her? Why didn't I stop Natalie before she almost killed–drowned–my Sara? No matter how many times Sara assured him that it wasn't his fault, he could not seem to forgive himself. If Sara had died that night...all alone...that's where his thoughts would halt, and he would struggle to distract himself in work.
Work was all he had now. His empty house held no appeal. Without Sara, it was just a place to sleep, and fitfully at that. Bad dreams. Never had he had so many, or so vivid.
Grissom flicked his eyes between the road, his rearview mirrors, and that blinking green light that slowly grew closer to the pale blob that was him. I'm coming to you, honey. Getting closer. The wipers beat and stroked the windshield and the headlights of the other cars lit his face eerily. Grissom kept driving through the pouring rain.
Rain. Would it never end? The sky lightened slightly with a watery white sun behind him as he finally got so close that the GPS map showed individual streets. Sara seemed to be right on the beach, not surprisingly; she always loved the ocean and missed it in their desert city.
At last he pulled up in front of a small simple house, the dunes beyond. Grissom heaved a sigh. He released his grip on the steering wheel, only now noticing how tightly he had held it for hours. He flexed his fingers and pain shot up his arms. Grissom got out and staggered, his legs and knees were tight and aching too.
The rain instantly drenched him, but Gil didn't notice much. He stumbled up to the door and pounded on it. No answer. No sound inside, and the lights were off. He pounded harder.
"Sara! SARA!" Grissom pulled out his cell phone and called her number. He heard a faint ringing and followed it, the phone still open in his hand, as he squelched around to the other side of the house and kept yelling her name.
There was a blotch of white, a dark figure, lying prone in the sand. The phone was ringing from it.
"SARA!!" he screamed, panicked.
He ran and fell to his knees beside her and his fear melted to concern to see her eyes look into his. She was smiling slightly at him, but didn't speak.
"Sara!! SARA! Are you hurt?"
"Grissom." Her voice was flat. He struggled to hear her over the rain slapping on his back. There was a crack and rumble of lightning and thunder behind him.
Grissom pulled her up in his arms and held her, asking frantic questions. Sara hugged him back passively.
"Let me down. Come lie down beside me," Sara told him calmly but firmly.
"Honey. You're freezing! What..."
She disengaged herself and lay back down. Her white shirt was slick and he could clearly see her breasts and stiff pink nipples through it. She had jeans, black with rain, but nothing else on. The skin on her arms and face was white, so white, her lips pale.
"Grissom. Lie down. Please?"
Is she crazy? Has she finally lost her mind after that one last message? Or can't she get up?
Sara seemed so doggedly determined that he decided to humor her. So Grissom lay down and held her cold body in his arms.
"Better," she sighed. "Look!" Sara pointed straight up at the sky.
Grissom turned on his back and looked up obediently. "What? I don't see anything."
"The rain, Gris. Look at the rain. How it falls. Not straight down, but kind of swirling before it strikes the earth. It's beautiful."
"Honey," he said desperately.
"Hush. Look at the rain."
So he did. She was right. He had never watched the sky rain straight down on his face before.
"It is...very...I never looked before."
"I know!" Sara cried out, delighted that he understood. "We never really see it, do we? We just hide and duck under it, and curse the sky. But...there would be no life, if there were no rain," she concluded dreamily.
"Yes. You're right, Sara." Grissom was still worried, still scared for her, but was reaching out in the only way he could think of, now.
They gazed at the sky together.
"Look!" Grissom said, pointing. A huge dark cloud hung over the sea, and brilliant yellow lightning flashed within it. The water fell in sheets from it down to the waves--dark and high and tipped with white. Just as they looked, a tremendous bolt of lightning crashed to a tree on a headland, not far away, and its thunder boomed almost immediately to their ears.
They both jumped at the noise, then laughed at themselves.
The wind picked up and Grissom shivered.
"I...I'm cold, honey. Can we go inside?"
Sara, who seemed to have no care for her own well-being, instantly turned and said with concern, "Yes." She looked like she was only just now noticing that he was there, and who he was.
"Yes, of course, Grissom."
They helped each other to their feet.
Grissom felt his fear return. She seemed so strange. So distant. Here, but not here.
Come home Sara. Come back to me.
TBC