The Truth Will Out
When she woke several hours later, it was to a room far darker than she remembered. Her curtains had been pulled shut, leaving as the only source of light in the apartment a small lamp on the end table by her desk.
Sara tottered a little unsteadily to her feet, still feeling a bit dizzy and tired, but thankful that the throbbing headache and oppressive nausea had gone.
She stumbled the five or so feet into her living space to find Gil Grissom sitting on her sofa fast asleep with his glasses perched precariously on the end of his nose, his chin resting on his chest and the most recent edition of TheJournal of the American Academy of Forensic Science propped open on his lap. She smiled as she carefully removed first his glasses and then the magazine and pulled a blanket over him.
Her attempts to be as quiet as she could were eventually foiled when a snicker escaped her lips in response to the sound of him snoring softly.
She was just about to beat a hasty retreat when his still slightly groggy -- "What's so funny?" stilled her.
"Shouldn't you be sleeping?" She asked in a tone of mock innocence.
"Shouldn't you?" He replied, squinting at her curiously.
"Touche," she admitted.
"So what was so funny?" He asked again.
"I didn't know you snored," she said simply.
"I don't snore," Grissom countered, fumbling for his glasses.
"Looking for these?" Sara asked, dangling his spectacles in front of him. He reached for them, but she playfully pulled them out of reach as she teased, "Admit it, you do."
"I guess I shall have to take your word for it," he conceded. "Now may I..." He indicated the glasses. She handed them over without another word. After he slipped them back on, he peered up at her, searching her face. "How are you feeling?"
"Besides mortified?" She replied, quickly taking a seat in hopes of stilling the returning vertigo.
"You have nothing to be embarrassed about, Sara," Grissom said.
"Yeah, like you want to have Ecklie help you up to your townhouse, watch you spill your guts and have to pack you to bed..."
Grissom's eye brows rose as he considered this scenario. "I think I'll take a pass on that particular experience, thank you very much."
Sara found herself smiling in spite of herself, but the grin quickly faded as he proceeded to say in a soft, almost hesitant sort of voice,
"But I didn't come here as your boss, Sara."
Her astonishment must have registered on her face, because his own face turned slightly sober as he said,
"Or your friend."
She blanched and closed her eyes, feeling suddenly overwhelmed. Almost instantly, she felt one of his warm hands on her cheek.
"Are you still feeling faint?" He asked concerned. Sara nodded. "I should have woken you earlier to eat, but I just couldn't. You were sleeping so soundly and I thought you could really use the rest."
She felt his hand draw away and heard his shoes shuffle into the kitchen. When he curled her fingers around yet another glass, she wrinkled up her nose and said, "More milk?"
"Yes. Best thing for it."
"For what?" She inquired, hazarding a glance at him.
"Sara, are you diabetic?" He asked, taking the empty glass from her.
"No."
"Hypoglycemia," he answered as if that explained everything.
"Low blood sugar?"
He nodded. "Extreme fasting, plus stress, plus too much caffeine can make your blood sugar plummet suddenly once all of your body's ready stores of glucose have been used up. The headaches, the vertigo, the nausea, general unsteadiness, rapid heartbeat and sudden personality changes that are are all alleviated by an intake of sugar are all indicative of hypoglycemia."
"Why milk? Why not juice?" She asked.
"The protein in the milk helps stabilize the absorption of galactose -- milk sugar -- so the body doesn't end up in a hyperglycemic state. Its a lot gentler than juice, which you really don't want to drink after vomiting. And with candy, honey or sugary sodas your blood sugar can plummet again after an initial rise."
"Makes sense," she said, nodding appreciatively. "You really do know just about everything don't you?" She teased.
"Hardly," he replied. "Facts and information are just that. Data and patterns of behaviors only help you so much. Real knowledge and truth are something else entirely." He paused, bowing his head, seemingly to contemplate his empty hands, when in reality he was considering the best way to begin what he really wanted to say. After a deep breath, he decided to risk it.
"I don't know for certain, but I am fairly sure that what you said in the car wasn't part of some personality change brought on by hypoglycemia."
This time Sara looked away when she replied so softly he had to read her lips to hear her, "No."
"Why are you sorry about what happened, Sara?"
She didn't answer.
"If you think I regret that afternoon..."
She cut him off with an almost angry, "You don't have to lie, Grissom. Not out of some perversely noble attempt to spare my feelings."
"I'm not..."
"I saw it in your eyes, Grissom," she nearly shouted. "I saw the regret in your eyes when you left. I'm a big girl. I don't need you to feel sorry for me..."
Gil Grissom shook his head sadly. It seemed as though their relationship had always been like this -- founded more upon misreading and misunderstanding than truth because he, for one, had been scared to death of having to face the truth. The truth of it was he needed her. He loved her. And it was time he finally did something about it.
"Sara," he called and waited for her to look at him. When she did, he could see the hurt and sorrow play upon her face. He took a deep breath to steady his voice and began, "My regret was not about anything that happened. It lay in being sorry that I had to leave. The only thing I regret about that afternoon was that I had not come to you sooner -- days sooner, weeks sooner, months -- years sooner."
After a long pause, Sara asked, "Do you even know what you want, Grissom?"
"The only thing I ever wanted..."
She searched his face, her eyes trying to understand what he was trying to tell her; her own features begging him to continue so she could just breathe again.
"You."
Was all he replied.
Sara brought her fingers to her lips to stifle her gasp, but Grissom took her hands in his and held them, rubbing his thumbs across her knuckles.
"What do you want, Sara?" He asked.
She smiled a soft, warm sort of smile as she answered, "The only thing I ever wanted..."
This time it was Grissom's turn to wait and wonder, but Sara decided to promptly put him out of his misery.
"You, of course," she replied.
His momentary disquiet turned into delight. He beamed with all the contentment she had seen him exhibit when one of his many and varied experiments yielded results better than what he had expected.
"So I'm not too late?" He asked, this one fear needing to be dealt with and put away.
Sara took his face in both of her hands.
"No."
"Then no more lines to cross? No more walls?" He asked and then his queries shifted into a statement, "Just..." he paused to brush his lips against the heel of her hand before placing a lingering kiss on her palm.
"... us," she finished. Sara slid her hand around the back of his neck and drew him towards her. They both leaned in and...
Grissom's phone went off, startling them both into nervous laughter. Sara could almost swear that Grissom blushed as he pulled his cell from his pants pocket and flipped it open.
"Grissom," he answered in his usually brisk businesslike fashion as if nothing at out of the ordinary was afoot.
Sara rose and retrieved a small notebook from her desk. Without a word, she placed it and a pen in front of him on the coffee table. Almost mechanically, Grissom picked up the pen and began to write, making a point to verify each detail that the caller was giving him before he moved on to the next.
Sara liked watching him work like this, absorbed as he always was by the minutia. She had always admired Grissom's thoroughness and attention to detail when it came to his work. It was part of what made Grissom so quintessentially Grissom.
So that when he did something Sara regarded as so very unlike himself, she almost had to choke back a cry of surprise.
Grissom shot her a perplexed look as he repeated into the phone, "In about ninety minutes. Yeah. I have to stop by and pick up Sara. Then we'll both head out. Ok. See you then." He snapped his phone shut and turned to her. "Something wrong?" He asked at the dumbfounded look plastered all over her face.
"You aren't out of town."
"Would you rather I told him I was here?" Grissom asked.
Sara considered the implications of his question for a moment. "Not really," she replied. "But still, even with traffic, which is unlikely at this hour, its only 20 minutes to the lab from here. Even if we both showered we could be there in less than 45."
"That's true. However, you left something out of your calculations."
"Oh? What?"
"You and I are going to have dinner before heading in," Grissom replied nonchalantly.
"We are?"
He nodded. "Plus, as your cupboards are habitually bare, I need to stop by the store to pick up a few things."
"We can pick something up along the way," she countered reasonably.
"Are you afraid of my cooking?" He asked, pretending to be hurt.
She shook her head.
"Well then, what's the problem? You and I are going to sit down and share a meal before shift."
"But what about the case?" She questioned.
"It's already dark, its not raining and our DB has been shut up in a barn for two weeks, Sara. Another forty-five minutes isn't going to change anything."
"But I thought..."
"There are some things more important than work. It's taken me far too long to realize that fact," he said, smiling a little sadly at her.
Sara, for her part, was still trying to reconcile his recent actions and intentions with everything she thought she knew about Gil Grissom and gave up, deciding that it was far more profitable to just find the gesture he was making touching in -- and of -- itself.
"So, I will be back in fifteen minutes," he continued, pulling on his coat on the way to the door, completely oblivious to the feelings of deep affection he was stirring in Sara as she watched him go. "If you want to get cleaned up and dressed while I'm gone, I'll throw dinner together and hop in the shower while its cooking and we should still have plenty of time to eat before Brass expects us back at the lab."
She laughed as she tugged at his jacket to straighten it. "You really do think of everything," she said.
He shook his head as he leaned in and placed a kiss on her cheek. "I'll see you soon."
She nodded and reluctantly closed the door behind him.
End Notes:
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