Chapter 4
In a Cupboard Outside Paris...
She was not sure where she was, and couldn't exactly remember how she came to be there. Words, sensations and sounds were flooding into her head in a confused, disjointed tangle, forcing her to her knees.
She had been coping, she had been dealing with it. On her own. The best way to deal with anything was always on her own. Other people just complicated things...Too bloody true...
It was safe to say that she was not coping now. If she was honest with herself, she had never really been coping, since her idea of dealing with it had been to pull so many triple shifts that she had rivalled Grissom and when she had finally accepted that even high-functioning insomniacs such as herself needed sleep, in order to succumb to the most irritating of nature's demands for humans, she ended up taking a couple of zolpidem with a shot and surrendering to the black abyss of unconsciousness with all of the nightmares that stalked her in the darkness while she was vulnerable.
She hadn't been coping, she had only been pretending that she was...That had been enough though...
It seemed that Basderic got what he wanted after all, she was slowly destroying herself somewhere in the middle of the desert, quite alone ,with no-one to know and no-one to care, delicately combusting as the memories of the last few hours overcame her.
"Why not?"
"It's not fair..."
"I love you!"
His lips pressed, with tender passion, against hers.
She opened her eyes and screamed in pain and frustration, knowing that no-one could hear her. No, it was not fair, none of this even came close to being 'fair'. He had no right to do this to her. He had ended it. He had suggested the separation. He couldn't just decided he'd had some sort of eye-opening experience from a bullet that did not even exist and then say that he wanted her, that she was good enough for him now...
She was not one of his research papers that he could leave and come back to whenever he became interested in it again. She deserved more than that. More than being treated like that. Didn't she? She would not, could not wait for him anymore...How many years had she wasted on that already? How long had she clung to the idea of him, the idea of them? She had not expected that when they were married, she would still be waiting.
But then she had not expected them to be on different continents, she had not expected them both to become so wrapped up in their jobs that they forgot about each other, she had not expected to come home to an empty apartment every night, with nothing but a take-away menu and a bottle of wine and sleeping pills for comfort and company; to sleep in an empty bed with only a pillow to hold her when she woke up in a cold sweat, screaming, under the blanket at three am...
Was this all she deserved though? Had she asked for this? She knew who she had married, what kind of man he was, that was why she had married him after all...Had she really expected anything different? Had she any right to expect differently?
Yes. She told herself firmly. Se had that right when he asked her to marry him, when he had found her in the jungles of Costa Rica, when he had made her feel for the first time in her life; happy. Properly happy, true happiness, not tempered by fear or lust or loss. He had no right to take that away from her whenever he felt like it...
She finally managed to clear her eyes long enough to see where she was. She was nowhere. She was nothing...An accident on the huge expanse of desert that was claimed by the horizon beyond. The great, flat plains of dead space where nothing grew and nothing lived felt strangely appropriate...She could quite easily lose herself to it...Right now she could happily lose herself to it, if only for a few hours...
He stared blankly at the wall where, two minutes ago, he had had everything and now, the only thing between his hands was all he had left...Nothing.
He sank to the floor, bracing himself against the cold stone, eyes closed wondering why he had done that, why he had pushed her, why he had pushed her away...
She was the only woman, the only one that he had ever allowed into his life without fully understanding. He could never understand her, could never quite wrap his head around the way he behaved around her, the way he no longer had to justify everything he said or did, he could be impulsive, he could say and do whatever he felt and only worry about the consequences later. He had opened himself up to her completely and let her love him for all of his imperfections, his demons and insecurities, for everything he was and everything he wasn't, and she had done the same for him.
And yet, for all that he knew about her, he could never know what she was. 'A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma' that was part of the attraction. She was always changing, always hiding, never completely open about herself, no matter how much she trusted him, always giving him something new to learn about her every time they were together; every time they met; every time they talked; every time they touched .
It was her. It had always been her. The dominatrix Lady Heather had captured him, but only short term. She too had been deep and complex, a challenge but nothing more. When she had chosen to reveal herself to him, she had done so fully, leaving nothing to the imagination or the intellect. An open book with no more pages left to turn whereas Sara never stopped writing and never let him see until she was good and ready, and never any more than a glimpse...
He sighed and rubbed his eyes, the familiar dull ache beginning to throb behind them.
He started as someone banged on the door. He hesitated for a fraction of a second before reminding himself that it was his house too and stood to answer it.
"Hey, oh-"
It was Brass, exhausted and jet-lagged having just been giving the news of the drama that had unfurled in his absence.
"Hey Jim..."
"I, uh, I was looking for Sara..."
"She's not here...Would you like to come in?"
"...Sure, yeah, I have nowhere else I need to be..."
"I take it you've heard..." Grissom murmured quietly, leading him in to the living room.
"Yeah." Brass snorted, "I go away for a few days and everything goes to the dogs...And you might be faster asking who hasn't. News in Las Vegas law enforcement travels faster than half-price hookers on The Strip..."
Grissom sighed, knowing how Sara would take this and hating how much she would despise it.
"I also heard a couple of things that aren't running on the grapevine yet...You separated?"
If there was one thing he did not want to talk about and with one person, it was this and Brass.
The two of them had always been close, that had been obvious. What had not been as obvious however, was Brass' relationship with Sara. He had loved her like a daughter and she had accepted them as the father she never had, something that not many outsiders could see but he could. He was sure that, had he ever done anything to hurt her, he would have spent the rest of his life looking over his shoulder for Brass and a shotgun.
"Yes...At the time, it was the only thing I could do to stop hurting her..."
"'At the time'? Not anymore?" Brass asked quietly,
"Now...I don't think now matters, what's gone before...It's too late..."
"You know Gil Grissom, for a genius, you're pretty damn thick sometimes..."
"Yes, I am, particularly if I ignore the 'genius' part of me that's warning me not to accept relationship advice from you..."
"You see that just illustrates my previous point because I am someone you should take relationship advice from because I've been there. I know what it's like when you get there and you're not there, neither of you are...In the few months leading up to our divorce, all we did was fight, I mean, all, it didn't take much, any excuse...There was no love left between us by the end, the passion had turned to anger, the love to hate and misery...You're not there yet Gil. You have a beautiful, intelligent, brilliant woman in your life and she's not ready to let go. While you feel that this is hurting her, until neither of you can stand to be in the same room without need a large glass of something very alcoholic, it's not too late..."
"I hope so...It just feels as though I'm toying with her, abusing her trust, and I know what that will do to her...I've always only wanted what's best for her and I thought I knew what that was and then I thought I'd lost her and I realised exactly what that meant for her, for me and I...I don't know...I just can't see a way out of this other than to follow the path we've gone down..."
"I don't know either Gil..." Brass sighed, "As you pointed out, I'm not exactly the font of all knowledge when it comes to successful marriages, if it's over everyone will accept that and they'll support you, support you both..."
"Thanks Jim..." he said quietly, "Do you want to wait here for her or-"
"No, no, I think maybe I should give her some space just now, it's probably what she wants, i just came by to make sure that she was OK...But in all honestly, I haven't slept properly in four days and there's a feather mattress calling to me."
Grissom managed a smile at this and walked him to the door saying lightly, "Enjoy..."
"Yeah." Brass chuckled, before adding in an undertone, "Gil, before you follow me out, leave her with something to come back to..."
He left, leaving Grissom staring out after him, always surprised by his alarmingly accurate instincts.
Deciding that he was right and that, after all of the revisiting of ancient history that they had done, to stick to their unwilling drag down memory lane by reaching for pen and paper.
She cautiously entered the house, finding it as she so often did, to be empty, but for once, this comforted her. She could not face him right now, she needed to get her own thoughts straight before she started wrestling with his.
Her feet ached as she pulled off her shoes and socks, padding around in her bare, blistered feet allowing the cool tiles to soothe them. She didn't know how she had managed to stagger back home, or, more pressingly, why she had bothered...
As she padded into the living room she froze, noticing something on the table in the dark that had not been there when she had left. Her stomach convulsed and acidic bile hit her throat as her thoughts turned, irrationally, to Basderic. In her house. All over her things. Out with her control...then she switched the light on and realised what it was.
A plant.
Unable to believe the audacity of this, she moved towards it, noticing that a letter had been tied to one of its slender stems, more than the usual sentiments card.
For Sara...
She tenderly removed it and against her better judgement cautiously opened it, hand flying to her mouth and knees buckling beneath her as she realised what it was,
'Human beings have developed a rather misconstrued idea of what a marriage it..What started off as a simple, religious ceremony celebrating two people has become a glamorised show...The dress, the church, the cake, the guests, even the flowers...I now know, and I think you do too, why we are doing this. We understand that you won't spend the rest of your life in your wedding dress, that we won't grow old together in that church, that we must let ourselves eat more than cake, that we probably won't see ninety per cent of the guests again and that I have something far more beautiful and far more worthwhile to spend my time looking at than those flowers...I have you. The only thing that matters from this day, the only thing that sets this apart from other marrigaes, is you. Because the only thing I will have from this day until the day I die is you Sara Sidle...'
In a cupboard in that little town outside Paris whose name I've forgotten, though I'm sure you won't have, with no-one but the minister and a couple of alley cats as witnesses, I told you that I loved you and that you were the only thing in this life I was sure I would have until the day I died. I still want that, I always have, I thought that I was acting with your best interests in mind but it was never something I believed or wanted. I know you must be confused by what I've done and said recently, to be honest, I am too. The only time I've ever been sure about my feelings for you is when I stop over-thinking and started listening to what my heart had been trying to tell me all along. The first time, when Natalie took you away from me, I couldn't think, I couldn't breathe without you and that told me more than all the hours of thinking and analysing how I felt about us It told how much I loved you. I am sorry that it took this, it took someone trying to take you away from me again to show me how wrong I have been...
I thought that when I made that call, that stupid, ill-thought out call, that I was saving you. That I was setting you free, removing the ties we've been pinning each other down with for too long. I thought that you would be ready to say goodbye because you weren't saying goodbye to what we had then but what we have now. Which is never something I wanted. It took a bullet that never even existed, the threat of someone else taking you from me to realise that I wasn't saying goodbye. I wasn't setting you free. I wasn't saving you. I was losing you. I was losing you and the pain I felt at that damned near killed me and the thought that you had known, you had seen that from the beginning destroyed me Sara. When I realised what I had done to you, what I had actually done and not just what I wanted to pretend I had...I cannot put into words what it did to me, how much I wished that I could take it back. I am so sorry...
I don't blame you for hating me, for feeling the way that you do. I rejected you, I told the only woman that I had ever loved that I didn't want her, that I never wanted to hurt her, while paining her more than I ever believed to be possible and it's only now I write it down and see the truth that I understand what I've done to you, what I've done to us. I know that you're not giving up on us, that you could never do that, but that you're giving up on me. You can't keep allowing me to play with you, to tell you I want a separation one minute and to spend the rest of my life with you the next. I understand that you must be confused and frustrated and I am too. I can only tell you now that I know. I know for sure what I've always known but couldn't find a way to make sense of until now. I know that I love you Sara Sidle. I know that you're the only one I've ever really loved. I know that I would move Heaven and Earth for you, sell my soul to the Devil and promise a lifetime of servitude to the Gods for just one more night with you. I know that you make me happy. But I also know how this must sound. Words on paper. They don't mean anything, not after the months of distance but they mean something to me Sara. You mean something to me, you mean everything. The only right now that doesn't is the thing I almost chose over you. Books and research, they can be done anywhere, at any time, I can't believe I allowed myself to become so lost in something so meaningless. To allow that to frustrate me and consume me so when the best thing that had ever happened to me needed me to be with her. I'm here Sara. I will always be here. I will be wherever you need me to be.
All I wanted was for you to be happy, and I want us to be happy but I'll understand if it's too late, if I've done and said too much, if you really can't. As with so many things in this mess we call life, we can't always get what we want, because sometimes, someone else knows it's not what we need. My main reason for marrying you, for being with you, for loving you and living for you was you..I don't know what to do about this Sara. I know what I want to happen but I don't know what to do...If you want me to go then I'll go, and never come back; if you want me to stay, then I'll never leave your side again; if you need time, then I'll wait, forever and a day if that's what you need; if you want it to be over then it's over; if you want to give it one more chance then I'll dive into it headfirst with you; if you don't know what you want, then I'm here for you Sara...
Whatever and always...
From Grissom.
A/N:Quite worried about this one, I may have gone too far with it, I realised what a twisted person I am when I had the idea to put his wedding vows in this...Overkill? The letter was one of the hardest things I've ever written (and re-written I don't know how many times) and I would like to know what you thought of it so I can fix it if it was broken to begin with.
I promise that I will try and tidy up the mess I seem to have made of this in later chapters, but if you're in this one, you're in for the long haul I'm afraid, I'm still sort through angst and thoughts of 'how the Hell do I fix this?' I'm thinking of going back and revisiting both of them in the aftermath of the infamous break-up callIn the meantime let me know your thoughts, good bad or indifferent, they are always appreciated, I am trying to improve...
