Thanks for all your wonderful reviews, especially Toothchick (my feelings exactly), Moochiecat and MyKate. I hope that all of you will continue with me as we move along with Grissom in his arduous journey.
Chapter 4 – How can I breathe?
Grissom let his feet take him. He didn't know where he was going, he was just moving away from Catherine's constant crying and the sad looks the Gilmans were sending his way. Brass, his last bastion of strength, had left to notify the team and as he watched him disappear into the elevator Grissom found himself drowning in the deep, deep sadness that clutched at him. So he fled, sneaking away to haunt the halls, trying not to look too closely at anyone he passed, until he found himself standing in front of the hospital's chapel.
Looking up, puffy, red-rimmed eyes immediately fell on the glowing stained glass before him and he frowned. There should've been colors splashed against the walls – a vibrant, energetic glow that was the only light in the room, a light that always reminded him of Sara's smile, the one reserved just for him that lit up his days and nights. Instead all the colors were fading, washing out as if they were leaking away, disappearing just like the smile he would never see again.
Pressure behind his eyes and a hiccupped breath followed that thought. He would never, never see that smile again or feel her body close to his or her hot breath on his neck. He would never again be able to lose himself in that sultry voice that soothed him when nothing else could or look deeply into those brown eyes that told him so much when words were scarce.
Fighting for some semblance of control, he sealed shut trembling lips against a pitiful groan, a shaking hand moving to his mouth while the other grabbed at the doorframe to keep him from dropping to his knees. He had to contain his cries, hold his agony within so as not to draw attention to himself anymore than he already had. The world didn't need to see Gil Grissom falling apart. It was bad enough Catherine and Brass had witnessed his breakdown. No one else should be privy to such a scene. His hand dropped away from his mouth as he stood a bit straighter and looked back toward the stained glass. Fewer colors met his gaze now.
Stepping through the chapel doorway, an unsteady gait made him hold onto the end of each pew as he passed finally making it to the front and a decision – left or right. His muddled brain couldn't seem to decide. He closed his eyes and sighed. Would this be the way of things from now on? A simple decision – left or right – would become something to ponder for hours on end? A wisp of air ruffled through his hair and his eyes snapped open. A chill followed and he turned.
He was alone.
Alone.
His chin began to quiver at the thought so he took a deep breath and came to a decision. Turning to the left, he sank down on the farthest end of the padded pew, grateful for the large fake plant that would keep him out of the way of prying eyes. No one needed to see the overpowering grief that consumed him.
Hanging his head, not in prayer but despair, he ran fingers through his hair holding tightly to the gray strands as his thoughts moved to his father. He'd died unexpectedly when Grissom was nine. No one would tell him why even though he'd asked everyone in sight. He'd felt the loss keenly. But it hadn't been anything like this – a dark mass of blackness rolling through him only to be usurped by the deepest form of misery that could befall a person. It was obstructing his every breath, causing pain in every joint, every nerve, and making him relive the doctor's words over and over.
I'm sorry.
Your wife didn't make it out of surgery
Her injuries were too severe.
Your wife didn't make it.
Didn't make it.
She didn't make it.
"I need to wake up now," he firmly stated aloud as tears continued down his bearded cheeks. "Just let me wake up now. Please." He was begging now. "Please let me wake up."
But there was no waking up from this particular nightmare for this was his new reality, his new life.
"Oh, Sara," he cried, weeping for his love and himself. Hands moved from his hair to cover his face as he leaned over, unable to sit upright any longer.
"Baby, wake up. Wake up," came Sara's voice floating through the dark nightmares that plagued him these last few weeks, bringing him instantly awake.
His breath was fast and his heart raced as he tried to figure out where he was, soon recognizing the feel of her hand on his face, hearing her soft words that always brought him back home. He rubbed at his eyes then sat up and swung legs over the side of the bed not willing to speak for the visions were still fresh, the blood still red and her eyes still fixed and staring.
"Was it me again?" she asked sitting next to him, gently caressing his back. He nodded. "I'm all right, Gil. I just have some bruises."
"You could've been killed," he said, his voice soft and vulnerable.
"But I wasn't."
"But you . . ."
"I wasn't, Gil," she interjected reaching for his chin and pulling it toward her until their eyes met. "You saved me. My knight in shining armor came to my rescue."
"This isn't funny, Sara," he stated in a clipped tone.
Rising from the bed she knelt in front of him and grabbed his hands.
"You saved me, Gil. You beat that bastard to a pulp and have the bloody knuckles to prove it while I just have a great big bruise on my side where I fell into the trashcan. You are my hero in more ways than one."
Slowly he intertwined his fingers with hers.
"I heard you call out and I . . ." he faltered shaking his head. "Everything stopped when I heard your voice. I'd never heard it like that before and it scared me. And the only thing I kept thinking was how am I going to breathe if you're gone? How am I going to wake up after dreaming of you every night and be able to face the day without you? It frightened me and I found myself running on pure panic and all I could see was that man standing over you. I was so angry. How dare he make me live on memory alone and I . . . I've never felt like that before. All I knew was I had to save you or my life would be over."
"And you did, baby. I'm still here to make more memories with you." Quickly, he grabbed her to him and buried his face in her neck. "It's okay," she whispered as he held on fast. "You will never be far from my thoughts and you will always know that I love you no matter what." She ran her hands down his back. "I will always be here."
"You can't promise that," he finally said.
"I can and I will. I would fight Death itself to stay by your side. I'm pretty sure he'd look kind of funny with two black eyes and scythe sticking out of his ass."
He couldn't help but laugh, a short chuckle that seemed to relieve the feeling of helplessness that bombarded him in his dream and stayed with him when he awoke.
Slowly he pulled back. "I'd like to see him with a scythe up his ass."
She smiled at him. "Then make sure you bring your camera. We could probably sell it to the National Enquirer and make a mint." She ran her fingers across his cheeks. "Want to try to go back to sleep? I'll make sure to keep all the bad guys away."
He nodded and she slid in next to him as he settled, quickly taking her into his arms.
"Thank you," he whispered kissing her forehead.
"You're welcome for so many things."
"How am I going to breathe without you?" Grissom whispered wiping at his face before making himself to sit up and try to gather his wits if only so he wouldn't crumple to the floor in a boneless heap.
"You just do," came a soft voice to his right.
Startled, Grissom's head snapped around and he found himself looking into the deepest blue eyes he'd ever seen attached to an older man sitting at the end of the pew. A confused look crept across his features as he opened his mouth to speak only to have the question of his presence disappear as if it had never been replaced with something else.
"I don't know how," came out instead as Grissom turned from the man wondering how he'd managed to say something so honest to a stranger.
The man gave him a gentle knowing smile. "That's what I thought, too," came the answer as he looked toward the stained glass. "But when I kept waking up each morning, kept breathing in and out, I didn't have much choice. Apparently God has a sense of humor."
Grissom glanced at him again catching the man looking at him with a kind gaze.
"I tried to kill myself after my Emily died," he confessed. "I'm not proud of that but it happened. The gun misfired and all I got was a bruise and a damn big headache. I tried to cut my wrists but it seems I've got tougher veins than most. I even went so far as to step in front of a train and all I got was a broken leg. I could hear God laughing and it pissed me off."
The man turned from Grissom's woeful stare, eyes returning to the stained glass.
"After a month or two of wallowing in my misfortune to still be alive, I had a visitation." The man looked back to Grissom seeing he had his attention. He smiled. "Emily came to me and chastised me, reminding me about a conversation we'd had not long before she died. 'I will always be here,' she told me. 'And even though we are apart I will wait for you and we will be together forever.'" The man's smile became larger. "She was a tough lady."
Grissom thought he must have slipped into shock for that could only be the reason he'd heard the man utter those words, those words he'd heard coming from his Sara not too long ago.
"Ever since that day," the man continued ignoring Grissom's stunned expression, "I felt at peace. She always made me feel that way until the day I walked with her again and what a marvelous day that was."
He stood then, holding Grissom's intense gaze for a few seconds before looking once again at the stained glass.
"Beautiful. The colors are glorious. Reminds me of a cool spring day and the deepest fall colors all rolled into one."
Grissom's fleeting look at the muted, watery, dull colors gave him nothing at all to rave about. He looked away.
"My colors are gone."
The man looked back at him, watching as he turned back to the floor, feeling horrendous, incapacitating pain rolling off him.
"I know," he whispered. "But it will get better."
Grissom shook his head. It would never be better.
The man settled in next to him. "I will tell you something that I had to figure out on my own. Grief feels like fear and that fear is all consuming. It's like half of you has been ripped away leaving a hole so large there's nothing you can do to stop your life from gushing out. But she's still in there, in you. A part of her at least. She will always be there because of the memories you hold. They let you keep her close until you meet again. It takes time and more than one box of Kleenex and a few bottles of booze, but it gets better. It gets better."
Grissom said nothing, the man's words floating about his head, not able to find a steady perch to land and sit and wait to be recognized. He didn't know if they'd ever find their proper place. A warm hand made its way onto his shoulder.
"It will come, that day when the colors reach your heart again, and you will be able to look upon your life with something more than bleakness and desolation. Let those around you help because that's all they want to do, what they need to do." He pulled his hand from Grissom's shoulder and stood. "That day will come, my friend. It will come and you will be amazed at the peace you'll feel when, once again, she settles into your heart each time you think of her."
Grissom heard the man's footsteps move away and slowly raised his eyes to settle back on the dull stained glass and couldn't possibly see the day the man spoke of in his near future or ever at all. He was numb, empty, bare for all the world to see. How does one come back from such barren loneliness? How does one see the colors again when the one you want to share them with is no longer?
"I have never seen such beautiful colors in all my life," Sara said in absolute delight as Grissom stood behind her with a big grin on his face.
A letter requesting the honor of his presence at Thomas College1, buried amongst his paperwork on his desk, had provided the why they were now standing in an open field in Maine. The available time off came as a gift from none other than Conrad Ecklie which caused Sara to hug him. Ecklie. Grissom still couldn't wrap his head around that one but, then, neither could Sara. He'd raised a hand to her forehead the minute they left his office just to make sure she wasn't suffering from some unknown malady.
They'd been on their way to Machias2, a historical town of American Revolution importance, when Grissom spied a field of color so spectacular he didn't hesitate in turning off the road and pulling to a stop. Now he leaned against a tree filled with orange, red and yellow leaves and basked in the glory that was Sara, his camera never very far from his face, making sure to document all that he was witnessing in case his mind failed him at some point. These trees, this foliage that seemed to be painted with an artist's brush, paled in comparison to the pure joy coming from her as she spun around in circles to capture every sight. It delighted him so to know that she was happy. It seemed to ooze from her with every look, every touch, every spoken word.
For him he couldn't stop smiling. Teasing soon followed as Nick and Greg caught him humming a happy tune over a decomp then Warrick found both he and Doc Robbins breaking into song in the morgue as they dissected a king sized rat found in the trash in the alley. Even Brass told him that he looked like the sun, bright and shiny and full of love. Corny but true.
"What are you grinning about?" Sara asked as she skipped toward him, wrapping arms about his waist.
"I wasn't grinning," he answered kissing the tip of her cold nose as his own arms wrapped about her.
"Were to."
He shook his head. "Nope. I'm pleased with myself."
She giggled. "And there's a difference?"
"Immensely," he added with a nod.
"Pray tell what the difference is, m' lord?" she asked gravely.
Grissom smirked and raised a brow. "Grinning implies I find something amusing like a witty saying or a pretty brunette telling me to eat my vegetables."
She returned his smirk. "And pleased?"
His happy look changed to serious. "A pleased look means that I'm proud of myself for taking a chance, a chance that paid off very nicely indeed." He tucked a wayward strand of hair back under her knit hat. "I let you in. I allowed myself to take what you were giving and it's the best thing I've ever done with my life. Thank you, Sara, for never telling me it was too late. I'll always love you for that and for so many other things." He leaned in and captured her lips before quickly pulling back.
"What?" she asked as he squinched up his nose.
"You're lips are ice cold," he fussed.
"Yeah, it's like in the 30's out here," she reminded him then held him closer. "But I know a way to warm them up."
Her eyebrows waggled followed by a mischievous delightful smile that he couldn't help but return just before she dragged him back to the car to steam up a few windows in their attempt to warm up. The sun was slipping away when they finally made it into Machias.
Happy.
He'd been so happy and content to just watch her work or cook or sleep. His Sara, the one who made him participate in life instead of watching it slip by; the woman who broke him out of his shell and pulled him into the world. And now there would be no more windows to steam; no more arms wrapped tight about the other. His life, his heart, his love was gone and he could make no sense of it. One minute she was there and the next . . . It was as if it never existed.
But it had. He had the memories to prove it and all those photographs and yet that's all he had left. Memories and photographs that he could pull out and remember how good his life had been, how perfect they were together, how much he loved her and she him all tied up in a neat little bow that would grow more perfect as the years progressed. And yet he would give them all away for just a single, solitary hour with her.
Sara.
He rubbed at his face and closed his eyes to try and still the rampant images of what he could no longer have.
"I will always be here," came at him from out of nowhere. "In spirit, in body, in my love for you."
"Sara?" he called turning to face the empty room.
"No one, no anything will ever split us apart."
A rush of hope pushed him from his seat.
"And when we pass from this earth we will meet again in a better place and spend all of eternity together for I wouldn't want to spend all that time away from you, even on our worst days."
"Sara?" he whispered.
"On that I promise."
Then silence, the loudest silence he'd ever heard.
He fell back to his seat and stared at the floor. "Please wait for me Sara."
His voice caught and he covered his face with trembling hands as he once again gave in to the raging sorrow that would be with him forever.
A shadow played about the chapel door and the man appeared, watching Grissom's emotional display, hearing the agony in his cries and took a deep breath. Then his head tilted and he glanced toward the stained glass, a faraway look came into his eyes just before he gave a slight nod and slipped out into the hall.
1 Thomas College, located in Waterville, Maine has classes for Forensics and Psychology (equaling out to Forensic Psychology) – "Psychology of the Criminal Mind" and "Evidence Evaluation and Death Investigation".
2 Machias is the county seat of Washington County, Maine. Its name means "bad little falls" in Passamaquoddy. It has the honor of being the place of the first naval battle in the American Revolution.
Thank you for staying with me. Your reviews are spurring me onward. Chapter 5 should be up on Monday.