A/N: Another chapter-checking in on Grissom!

Deliberate Decisions

Chapter 6

Looking westward, the eight men could see the immense sky and a dark shape that looked like a line of thunderstorms building a towering cauliflower shape. But it wasn't a thunderstorm, not here.

"Sand storm—a big one," one of the men said.

Traveling nearly seventy miles an hour, the sand storm gave little time to cover and bag sensitive equipment, gather water, and jam a few personal items inside the crowded van. The only one in the group who had previous experience with a Gobi Desert sand storm assured them it would pass quickly, but not before turning the sky a brownish-red and blocking out the sun.

The researchers settled into cramped positions inside the van, talked for a time about weather and global warming as the dust particles pelted the van, but soon conversations turned to personal subjects, who the men had left at home, wives, children, and pets as the day became a brown-tinged night. One man, older than the others, said, "This will be my last long trip. I'd rather sleep with my wife in my old bed than listen to you guys snore and complain about missing your wives!"

He shifted on the bench seat and punched Grissom's shoulder. "Hey, Gris, how's your wife? Wish she had come with us!" He laughed, saying "Grissom has a wonderful wife—she arrives with clean clothes and makes this guy presentable to the rest of the world! Remember when she met us in South Africa?"

Grissom nodded and chuckled as he pushed his hat back. "She is wonderful."

"Yeah, she had figured out how to get first class upgrades so this guy ended up eating hot fudge sundaes while the rest of us were packed like cattle in the rear of the plane!"

"How long have you guys been married?" A younger man sitting in the back of van asked. "My wife isn't really happy with this trip—not the extended time—says our kids won't even know me when I get home."

Two other men immediately laughed and said, "They will!"

The men continued talking about wives, children, dogs, and finally turned to favorite foods which continued until the sun broke through the thinning gale. Wind died as suddenly as it had arrived and the fine dust settled into rippled ridges as far as they could see. As furious as the storm had seemed, it left little destruction other than a toppled tent and several inches of fine dirt covering everything around them. By the time the tent was set up again, dust brushed out of bedding, tarps removed from the dig, and workspace uncovered, a red sun was setting and the men opened cans and ate unheated food for dinner.

A native group of sheep herders lived several hundred yards from the dig site and several times a week the women arrived with a cooked brew of mutton stew and pots of salty, milky tea. The men generously paid for the food and traded provisions brought with them, and while the Mongolians were friendly, puzzled by the work of digging into the barren soil, they treated the men as temporary visitors who would leave as quickly as they arrived.

For Gil Grissom the time between sunset and complete darkness was the only time of the day he allowed his thoughts to travel to the other side of the earth. Using a penlight, he wrote letters he would never mail, but like his wife's emails, he knew the letters would be read. The thought of Sara reading his words, while in bed, snuggling next to him, always made him feel they were not thousands of miles apart.

When he finished his description of the sand storm, his thoughts turned to his life with Sara. He seldom thought about life before Sara; easily he smiled at his first memory of her—long legs, a pony tail, a wide smile. He loved her smile—he loved everything about her—and wondered what she was doing this minute as he calculated time. Inside a book, he found a photograph of his wife but looking at it caused a deep ache in his chest as his fingers traced over its well-worn surface.

Sara had been the one who insisted she would return to Vegas and to the crime lab and had made their married life work even as he traveled to far-flung places around the world. She was his stabilizing inspiration, his encouragement, his home. And he realized he missed her in every cell in his body. He folded his letter and placed it inside a book with the photograph. Perhaps, he thought, it was time he ended his frequent traveling and arranged to stay at home with his wife. There was one significant issue they needed to address; he had put it off long enough because he did not want to face the problematic outcome. He sighed as he wiped a hand across his face. Maybe it was time for life to take another direction.

He looked at the star filled sky once more before folding his camp stool and crawling into his tent, placing his shoes at the end of his cot and touching Sara's emails in his shirt pocket. Easily, he slipped into a peaceful sleep, almost dreamless, until a morning sun brightened his tent and he began another day in the desert. A moment before sleep came, he decided it was time to make a decision.

A/N: And thank you to everyone for showing your support of our little bits of writing! Enjoy! And another chapter will appear soon!