A/N: Just in case you are wondering as you read...
BOP (sometimes FBOP) stands for Federal Bureau of Prisons; the service is responsible for the administration of the federal prison system in the US.
And for those who haven't read the original story, or would like to read the letter again, the letter Grissom and Sara refer to in the chapter can be found at the end of chapter 18 of Mens Rea.
Thank you, as always, for reading.
They remained wordlessly staring at each other, for some time. Tears shone in Sara's eyes, reflecting his, but she kept a hold of them. She came full of anger and recrimination, resentment and acrimony, but all that negative emotion had made way to overwhelming love and relief on finally seeing him in the flesh. He looked the same, and yet she couldn't help noticing all the differences. She couldn't take her eyes away from his face, the healing bruise on his nose, the downcast and guarded look in his eyes. The light inside them was dimmer, duller, and not full of the sparkle, wit and intelligence of the past, and it filled her with deep sadness.
The lines on his tanned face were more pronounced, and she wondered how much time he spent out in the open. His hair, whiter and cropped shorter than she'd ever seen it, gave him an edge. He looked leaner and broader across the shoulders, more toned, under the khaki uniform, as though he'd been working out, something he'd never been prone to in the past. It suited him. The limp he'd tried to conceal worried her though, and she wondered whether he had received – was receiving – the care he needed.
For better, for worse, she'd told him, and she meant it. The words had come to her unexpectedly, but she hoped with all her heart that they'd imparted everything she'd come for. Sure, she was angry and she wanted answers, but ultimately she wanted for them to prevail as a couple. He was her husband, she'd not taken those vows lightly, and his mistake and the unfair way he had treated her afterwards didn't change the way she felt about him. Not in her heart.
An officer patrolling the area stopped by their table, the sharp rise of his brow telling them that they'd been holding hands long enough. With a nod, Grissom pulled his hand back and rested it next to his other one on top of the table. Sara removed hers grudgingly, then scowled at the officer but he was already walking away. How were they supposed to reconnect and heal if they couldn't touch each other, not even hold hands for longer than a few minutes?
"How are you?" Grissom asked, his voice husky and quiet, and she refocused on him with a start.
It was the first time she heard the sound of his voice in over a year, and it'd made her heart catch. "How do you think I'm doing?" she replied just as quietly, certainly not accusatorily, and yet she regretted the bitterness in her words as soon as they'd left her lips.
He pinched his lips, blew out a breath. "I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have asked that." His gaze flitted nervously to his right and the mother and son chatting animatedly at the next table, then back to her. He clenched his hands into fists, then unclenched them, forcing a smile. "Seeing you here…it's not easy for me."
She huffed. "Do you think seeing you in this place is easy for me?" She took in and let out a long breath and shook her head, still unable to fully come to terms with how they'd got there. "I thought you were dead, Gil. One phone call when you end things between us, and then nothing." She shrugged. "Not a sign. And I couldn't help thinking: he can't be dead, because I'd know, right?"
His gaze averted shamefully. "I'm sorry."
She licked her lips, swallowed the growing lump in her throat and made herself carry on. She wanted him to know how his behaviour had affected her, wanted him to realise how selfish he'd been. Why couldn't he have trusted her with this? Why had he felt the need to cast her aside? "And all the while I'm hurting," she said. "I'm making mistakes at work. I'm just going through the motions…questioning myself and our love. Our life together. Wondering why it went so wrong between us, what I could have done differently and why the best I deserved was a measly phone call."
She paused and waited for him to talk, take the chance to defend himself and start explaining, but he didn't.
"You acted as if the last fifteen years of our lives had never happened," she went on, keeping her voice low despite the urgency in her tone. "Like the life, the love, we shared all that time counted for nothing. We've had highs and lows before; we could have gotten over this too. I know we could have." Tears of frustration were building in her eyes, and she gave a small, sad smile. "But no, all this time, you're here, and I didn't know. Why didn't I know?"
The question died on her lips, and glancing away she brought a shaky knuckle to the tear that had slid from her right eye.
And still Grissom didn't respond. He just sat there, not meeting her gaze, accepting of his fate without a fight.
"Don't you have anything to say?" she tried again. "Anything at all that would make this…this situation easier to bear? Don't you care at all?"
He looked up sharply. The tears pooling in his eyes told her he was hurting as much as she was. "Of course I care," he defended heatedly, and with a glance at the guard walking past their table checked his tone. "But what do you want me to say? I have no defence, no excuses. You're right on all counts. The way I acted was cowardly and unforgivable. I accept that. I treated you horribly, Sara, the one being I hold dearest in the world, and I'll never forgive myself. I have no excuse, except to say that I acted out of preservation. Mine, but also yours."
Her smile was very sad. "Oh, the 'I have your best interest at heart' speech," she mused, her voice thick with emotion. "Yes, I remember now."
He was looking helpless, defenceless even, and she wished she didn't feel so bitter toward him. "I'm sorry."
"So am I," she almost said, but her anger made her bite back the words. "Stop saying you're sorry," she said instead. "Sorry doesn't change anything. Sorry doesn't make up for all the pain and heartache you've caused."
Holding her watery gaze he swallowed, then gave a nod. "I know that. I deserve your anger, Sara, your feelings of frustration and disappointment. I deserve everything I get. And more."
The self-pity and self-loathing in his voice, in his demeanour and eyes, broke her heart. He had no fight left in him, and she wondered suddenly how he was able to survive in a place like this. She took a deep breath and made herself calm down.
"What about your mother?" she asked. "Does she know?"
His tears spilled, and unable to hold her probing gaze he looked away and wiped at them.
"Oh, Gil," she said in a sigh.
He shrugged. "She thinks I'm in Peru again. Jim uses a made-up account to forward emails I write. I'm not proud of what I've done, Sara, to either of you." He stopped talking abruptly, and she couldn't mistake the sudden fear in his eyes.
"It's not my place to tell her," she said, her head shaking in response to his silent question. "Only you can do that. But just like me, she deserves to know."
He nodded his head resignedly. There was a moment of silence between them where Sara's expression turned softer. How could she stay angry with him when he was already so down on himself? When the love she felt for him was pushing every other emotion aside? She moved her hand toward the centre of the table, hoping his hand would come and meet hers again, but an officer came past and she drew it back.
One violation of the strict visitation rules and she ran the risk of being thrown out and refused subsequent visits. Well, assuming she managed to get Grissom to agree to any more visits of course, because she wouldn't be able to push her way past BOP bureaucracy a second time, even with Brass's and Grissom's attorney's backing.
"I'm sorry," Grissom said again, drawing her out of her thoughts. "I don't know what else to say to you, Sara."
She gave him a tender smile. "I know."
She checked the correctional officers' whereabouts then quickly slid her hand to the middle of the table again, and after a moment's hesitation he smiled and moved his hand too, giving hers a gentle, but brief, squeeze. Maybe they could wipe this first half-hour of the visit and start again? Pushing a strand of hair back from her face, she smiled more broadly at him.
"So," she said, when once again silence built between them, "How are you?"
He laughed faintly. "I'm fine." And to her probing stare, he added, "I'm doing fine, Sara, I promise you."
"That's it? That's all I get?"
"It's the truth."
Sara stared at him with disbelief, almost asked how he'd got his bruised nose, but the directness of his gaze told her he was telling the truth, that he was doing fine and that it would have to be enough for now.
"How did you find out?" His eyes lowered uncertainly then came back up to her face.
Her smile faded. "Does it matter how I found out?" When he nodded his head that yes, it mattered, she sighed. Unintentionally, bitterness crept into her voice. "Worried you didn't cover your tracks well enough? That I'm the first in a long line of visitors?"
"Jim?" he tried again, holding her gaze steadily.
She scoffed. "No. He kept your secret well enough, until faced with irrefutable evidence he had no choice but to tell me."
"It's not his fault, Sara. He only kept it a secret because I asked him too. He only—"
"Don't," she cut in, feeling anger rise again at what she still considered the worst kind of betrayal from someone she should have been able to trust. "Just don't. Don't make excuses for him."
"I have to."
She decided to drop the subject. She and Brass hadn't parted in the best of terms, but they were talking and working through their differences. "A goddamn fingerprint," she said instead, too loudly, and casting a quick look around lowered her voice back to a whisper. "That's how I found out you were locked up here and not working in Antarctica after all."
He cocked his head in confusion. "Antarctica?"
"One of the places I imagined you in."
Grissom averted his eyes uncomfortably, kept his voice quiet and even as he spoke. "I get that you're angry, Sara. You have every right to be and I know it's going to take time for you to—" Frowning, he stopped in his tracks. "You found my fingerprint?" he asked, puzzlement clouding his features. "While working a case?"
Her eyes lowering, she nodded her head. "Well, it was Nick and Greg's case, not mine, but yeah."
He swallowed. "So everyone knows?" he asked, his voice breaking.
She sighed, really felt for him then. "No, not everyone," she answered eventually, her tone more subdued. "Just Nick and Mandy, and DB. Nick is the one that told me actually." Pausing, she swallowed the sudden pain and heartache the recollection had brought about. "It won't go any further than them."
And then she went on to explain about the case itself and how his fingerprint was found on the underside of the plastic nametag window of a navy travel bag that had once belonged to him and been used in a liquor store robbery. She went into detail – a lot of detail – because as she spoke she began to notice the spark of interest and amusement growing in his eyes. She found herself relaxing too, and for a moment the noise of the crowded room receded and it was just the two of them again. She didn't tell him that the driver had lost control of the stolen getaway car, killing an innocent mother.
By the time she finished, Grissom was quietly chuckling to himself. "Ironic, isn't it?" he remarked, a smile tugging at his lips as he stared at his thumb print. "That my fingerprint collected on a piece of evidence should be my undoing."
The woman at the next table stood up suddenly, her chair legs scraping noisily across the vinyl floor, and Sara watched with puzzlement as she headed to the corner of the room where several vending machines stood. She held a clear plastic bag with money inside she fed into the machine, returning with two soda cans, a chocolate bar and a packet of potato chips. Cursing herself at the oversight, Sara made a mental note of it for future reference. When she refocused on Grissom, he was watching her with soft and intent eyes. Her smile trembled.
"Why couldn't you tell me?" she asked, her words coming out in a fraught whisper. She cleared her throat, then brought her hand to her mouth, trying to hide the anguish that flared up inside her. "Why couldn't you trust me?" Her voice broke again, and she swallowed. "I would have been there for you."
Sadness flashed across his face. "Didn't Jim—Didn't he give you the letter I wrote you?"
Sara's eyes lowered to the table.
"The one where I explain everything?"
Sara looked back up, met his earnest gaze dead on. "He did give me your letter, yeah. I get what you say in it, but I can't…I can't bring myself to— How could you dare to presume what was good for me? How could you take that decision out of my hands and think that…my not knowing was better for everyone concerned?"
Feeling emotion rise inside her again, she took a deep, calming breath. "There's so much I don't know, so much I still don't understand." She formed her hands into fists, once again curbing a surge of anger and frustration. "It kills me inside, Gil, knowing you're here, seeing you here, locked up like a common criminal."
"I am a common criminal."
"No!" she exclaimed, loud enough for one of the guards to turn sharply toward her. "You made a mistake, that's all. It could have happened to any of us."
"But it didn't. It happened to me."
Sara's head was shaking. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I spoke with your defence attorney and—" Grissom's features stiffened, causing her to stop dead in her tracks. Unexpectedly, he pushed back from the table, as if making to stand. "Gil, what's wrong?"
He shook his head. "I can't do this, Sara."
"What? No. Gil, please."
He made eye contact with the guard standing sentry nearby, then pushed to his feet and tidied the chair away. Just like that, he was putting an end to the visit. She started to panic.
"Gil," she called fearfully, and reached her hand toward him, "please. Don't walk away." Her tone turned pleading. "Don't go. Not yet. Not so soon. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. I—I know I'm going about this the wrong way. It's just—"
He shook his head.
"You ready to go back?" an officer asked Grissom tonelessly.
Turning toward the officer, Grissom nodded sombrely.
"No," Sara said, making to push to her feet too before thinking better of it. "Please, I'm sorry. Five minutes, just give me five more minutes." She looked at the officer pleadingly, then back at Grissom.
"You know that if you walk away now, you can't come back, right?" the officer said to Grissom. "That'd be the end of the visit."
After a long moment's hesitation, Grissom nodded at the officer then sat back down. His face was guarded, closed off.
Sara let out a breath of relief, changed tack. "I've asked to come see you again tomorrow."
He met her earnest gaze with a panicked one of his own. "What?"
"You haven't had a single visitor in fifteen months, and I put in a strong case. Brass and your attorney did too." She sighed. "The BOP said provided you agree, and they insisted they can't make you, they were fine with it."
Grissom's eyes lowered to the table.
"Please, Gil, let me come tomorrow. I'm flying back to Vegas first thing the next day." She paused, thought that if she didn't play her trump card now she might never get to. "Truth be told, I haven't been doing very well lately."
Her admission had the desired effect. He looked up suddenly, and she could see pain and understanding in his eyes.
"But you know that already," she said, smiling sadly. "Because unlike me, you haven't been kept in the dark, have you? You know exactly what's been going on."
His eyes flickering away from her face, Grissom let out a long breath. Then he nodded his head resignedly. "If I agree to see you tomorrow, it will be for the last time."
Sara's anger threatened to flare up again. Why was he the one always in control? Why was he allowed to make all the decisions for her? What about what she wanted? She was about to argue the point when she thought better of it and clamped her mouth shut. He'd agreed to one more visit; she could plead her case tomorrow.
She watched powerlessly as once again he stood up, tidied his chair and then walked away. She realised now that mentioning she'd spoken to his attorney had been a mistake, one that had cost her dearly. She'd known he wouldn't like it if she went behind his back, but how else was she to find out what had truly happened? How else could she fight for him, if he wouldn't fight for himself?
An officer indicated a door, and Grissom gave her one last, lingering look. She raised her hand in goodbye, and despite the fact that her heart was breaking all over again mustered a loving smile. He didn't return it. As soon as he was out of sight, the smile dropped from her face and she looked all around her uneasily.
Would he keep his word and see her the next day?
She hoped so with all her heart.
