Remembering Forward Again
Chapter 7
A/N: For those of you that are still with me, I am forever grateful. I have been such a slacker for not updating sooner. But I've got a good reason! I just found out that I got into grad school, and I have been trying to get things squared away for that. But I have not forgotten about this story. There is one more chapter after this one, and it WILL get done before I leave. Thank you all so, so much for your patience.
And of course I can't do anything without my grammar queen and beta extraordinaire, the EllipsesBandit; she is eight kinds of awesomeness. Big props to Mingsmommy for her expertise and helping hand. And a warm hello and thank you to Grand Falloon for offering her help too. Waffle love to y'all, ladies :)
The second Sara walked in the house, she leaned against the door, and sighed in relief. She'd suffered through one hellacious week: three consecutive double shifts, a two hour meeting concerning appropriate dress code, and then her department issued Denali had blown a head gasket. Now she had arrived home after another hellacious day.
As she removed her shoes, Sara heard the unmistakable sound of heavy steps from one of her favorite guys. Trigger, their boxer, bounded in from the direction of the living room, to greet her. The dog's tail seemed to move his whole body as he sat, excited to get attention from one of his owners. She laughed while Trigger snuffled and licked her palm. When he finally calmed down, the large dog sighed happily as she scratched behind his ears, and stroked his head.
"Closing the door wouldn't be such a hard thing to learn!" she heard Grissom call before the door slid back into place. Trigger had the ability to open the sliding screen door, but not shut it once he was inside or outside.
Her grin widened. "Let's go see what he's up to." Trigger immediately trotted ahead of her to the living room, using his nose to open the door to the backyard again. Sara found Grissom on the deck, standing at the grill with a pair of tongs in his hands. Her eyes softened at the sight of her husband in sandals and an old UCLA t-shirt hanging over his shorts.
Putting the tongs down and closing the grill lid, he turned to face her. "Hey," he greeted cheerfully. "How was your day?"
She stepped out on the deck, ignoring the fact she still wore pantyhose. Sighing, she replied, "I spent two hours waiting before they called me, and another five hours on the stand going over the same three pieces of evidence because the defense attorney was an idiot." She gave a small smile. "On the plus side, this was the best day of the week."
He pulled her into a solid hug and kissed her forehead. "It's a good thing you have a kind boss who gave you the next three days off."
Sara closed her eyes and took a deep breath. For a man who adamantly refused to hug and be hugged by others, Grissom's touch was always gentle and loving. And he never hesitated to be affectionate with her.
After her stress dissipated, she thanked him with a slow kiss. When they broke apart, she smiled brightly.
"So what smells good?" she inquired.
"I just threw some marinated salmon fillets on the grill. I've also got some potatoes and zucchini."
Her eyes lit up at the perspective of her favorite meal. Behind him, the table was set, complete with a green tablecloth underneath silverware, plates and wine glasses. There was even a vase of flowers and a couple of candle sticks.
"What's all this?" she asked, in slight awe.
"I just thought we could eat out here tonight." He shrugged, downplaying his gesture, before returning to the grill. "There are also some brownies in the kitchen," he added.
Even though he was the most emotionally reserved she had ever known, Grissom always told her, in his own way, he loved her.
April 2006
Homemade waffles; his subtle cinnamon and brown sugar scent; the way his lips glide softly across her collar bone; and his eyes. Those beautiful, aqua eyes.
Sara enumerated over and over the reasons why she agreed to go on this camping trip.
They had argued for two weeks on how to spend their four days off--Grissom wanted to go camping and Sara wanted to go, well, anywhere but camping. He usually went several times a year to photograph insects and other wild life. He would bring along a telescope and an astronomy book to study the stars. Sara, however, wasn't too keen on spending her free days defending herself from being eaten alive by mosquitoes and digging a hole as a makeshift bathroom. She had suggested they find a beach house in California. But he pointed out they had gone to a bed-and-breakfast last time as per her suggestion. He then turned up wide, boyish eyes, promising she would have a great time…
…which is how she found herself in the middle of the woods. Not having a great time. Sara groaned quietly, and rolled to her back, trying to seek a more comfortable position. Lying on the uneven ground had caused a cramp in her left leg. She pulled the sleeping bag more tightly around her. Even with the heavy material of the sleeping bag, flannel pajamas, and thick socks, she was still freezing. Thankfully she could no longer hear the loud chirping of the crickets and the crunching of branches-that had been drowned out by Grissom's snoring. When she felt something crawl across her arm, she quickly flicked off the unknown leggy creature, and pulled her legs closer to her body.
Those short grey curls she waited the better part of ten years to touch; the sound of his laughter, the way he frowned at the crossword puzzle…
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Grissom had told her the trail would take about four hours to complete. However, two and a half hours into it, they still weren't even half way through the hike.
"Fire ants belong to the genus Solenopsis, and there are 280 species worldwide," he explained. "The sensation of the bite is similar to that of getting burned." The camera snapped several times. "Hence the name."
"You wouldn't know this from experience?" Sara carefully asked.
"Only once, but it was my fault. I was eleven, and my experiment disturbed their colony."
They had veered off the trail several times so he could point out a plant species or try to find certain insects. When he did find the insect he wanted, Grissom's eyes would light up like a child in front of a candy store, and he'd immediately launch into a mini-lecture about it. His grin would be wide as he took photographs for his collection.
"Mountain pine beetles belong to the bark beetle group. They produce a pheromone that attracts other beetles for a mass attack. The tree produces resin, but the beetles carry a blue stain fungus that will block the response. The flow of nutrients and water is cut off, and the tree starves to death."
Instead of being annoyed, Sara found his enthusiastic behavior charming. He just looked so oddly adorable in his straw hat, hiking boots, and cargo pants, chasing down bugs with magnifying glasses and specimen jars. It seemed like the forest was his personal playground.
The only problem was the heat. Maybe it was the weather, or maybe it was the combination of the jeans she wore and the fifty pound backpack she carried, but she felt like she was a saturated sponge. Frustrated, she dropped her backpack on the ground with thud, opened it, and shoved items around, looking for a towel and a water bottle. It didn't help much because her arms and shoulders were damp after wiping them off with the towel. She cursed quietly as she put her bag on her shoulders again.
Grissom looked up at her with a bright smile, and then his eyes fell to his feet. He blushed slightly as if he had done something wrong. He quietly said, "I-I'm sorry. I just wanted to see…" Clearing his throat, he stated, "We can get going."
She stared at him, somewhat puzzled at his sudden change in demeanor.
Once on the path, he stayed silent, keeping his eyes concentrated on what was in front of him. He stopped trying to point out the nature around them. Did he think he had ticked her off by constantly veering off the trail?
When they sat on a large rock to rest, she noticed a black beetle crawling on one of the trees. For some very strange reason, Grissom wasn't interested at it, and she was more convinced that he'd misinterpreted her simply looking through the bag as annoyance with him. The beetle didn't look like the ones in his collection, but then again she had a hard time telling the difference between any of them.
"What's that?" she asked, pointing to the insect.
He moved closer to her to have a better look, and replied after only a second of thought. "It's a Pinon Ips beetle."
He didn't offer anything else, so she continued. "Are they bark beetles too?"
"Yeah," he tentatively answered. "But they're also engraver beetles because the egg galleries are etched in the tree."
"So they live in the tree?"
"They spend most of their lives under the bark. After the eggs hatch, the larvae feed on the inner bark." Sara stared in his eyes, and noticed the passionate sparkle come back. "After a few weeks, they form a pupal chamber and transform into adults. Then they go to another tree to start a new egg gallery."
"Do they start feeding on new trees?"
"No. Live trees are more resistant to an attack, so the beetles move to dead or weakened trees."
"Are beetles the only insects that attack trees?"
"Forest tent caterpillars can also cause damage, but they tend to favor aspens and oaks. It's sometimes hard to tell if a tree has been destroyed from disease or actual caterpillar damage. I've never been able to find the caterpillar."
Standing up, she moved off the rock. "We'll just use your mountain entomology book to help us. If we follow their evidence, we're bound to find one."
The corners of Grissom's lips slowly tugged into a grin. Now the happy nature guide was back. Taking her offered hand, he rose to his feet. He gently squeezed her fingers. "As you wish, dear."
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Three hours later, they headed back to the campsite with no luck in finding the forest tree caterpillar, but they did find plenty of other insects to satisfy Grissom.
"How did you get interested in insects?" Sara asked, after he finished photographing a spider's web. For almost a year, she had been slowly let into Grissom's life, relishing the details that shaped him. She discovered he loved peanut butter-ate it straight from the jar. He kept a small metal box in his bedroom that contained ticket stubs from every baseball game he'd ever been to. He had an immense movie collection that went beyond specials from the Discovery channel, his favorite being the James Bond films. Yet she didn't know how bugs ended up changing his life.
"I was about six years old, and one of my kindergarten classmates had gotten stung by a yellow jacket." He stopped at a small dip in the trail, stepped down first, and then offered his hand to help Sara. "Allen Westin had a huge welt on his leg; swollen, red, and apparently it itched horribly because he complained for days. I had never seen a yellow jacket, so…"
"You went looking for them," she finished.
"That was part of the reason." He paused for a long moment, and then finally admitted, "I had been stung by a bee before, and only gotten a small red bump. I wanted to see why a yellow jacket's sting would be different."
She laughed. "You didn't go to get yourself purposely stung, did you?"
There was the faint hint of a smirk on his face. "No. I just wanted to see if there was something different between their bodies that would make different sting marks. I found the nest, and waited for hours for the yellow jackets to come out.
"I got impatient at one point, and picked up a large stick to poke the nest." She snorted as he continued. "The yellow jackets came out then, and they were more than ready to defend their home."
The laughter was evident in her voice when she asked, "How many times did you get stung?"
"Twice on the arm. I ran away as fast as I could." Glancing over, Sara saw him grin, but his tome remained even. "I'm sure you can imagine the story I told my parents when I got home."
She couldn't suppress the giggles at the thought of a six year old Gil Grissom telling his mom and dad he was minding his own business when all of a sudden he was attacked by the huge, monster, killer yellow jackets.
"The stings swelled to the size of golf balls, and my mom had to put hydrocortisone on me for a week."
"And this didn't make you hate bugs?"
Shaking his head, Grissom replied, "My dad later explained to me why people react differently to stings. He told me about the toxins bees and yellow jackets used, and how some people's bodies can handle them while others can't. Then he told me there were other insects that had fangs and used other means to defend themselves. I asked so many questions, he took me to school with him, and introduced me to Dr. Vallersen, the biology professor, who was also an expert in entomology."
He smiled warmly at the memory. "Dr. Vallersen taught me which flowers bees are attracted to, how to handle a tarantula…"
"How not to poke yellow jacket nests with large sticks."
She laughed as he tried to pour the water from his canteen on her.
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"Sara…Sara…C'mon, honey, wake up…You need to see this."
The only thing Sara Sidle wanted to see was the inside of her eye lids. She'd finally found a comfortable sleeping position where her leg didn't fall asleep, where her head didn't lay in a pile of gravel, and where she was securely wrapped in the sleeping bag, protected from the cold and any unwanted visitors.
She opened her eyes to small slits, and found she could see the inside of the tent in a purple and orange glow.
"Gil," she breathed. "What time is it?"
"A little after 5:30."
5:30? Forget it. She didn't plan on functioning until sometime after 7. "Too early," she mumbled, burying herself deeper in the sleeping bag.
She felt his hand lightly shaking her leg. "No, sweetie, you want to see this. It'll be worth your while I promise."
Keeping her eyes closed, she let out a deep breath. "Can't you just bring whatever great thing this is to me?" she whined.
"No," he answered quickly. "I can't bring it out of its habitat. It would disturb the cat--" He stopped, and sighed. "Please, Sara. I promise you can go back to sleep when we're done."
Her mind barely registered "habitat," meaning he wanted her to see some sort of creature. It was probably a smart idea that he didn't bring it into the tent. She opened her eyes again, and saw Grissom staring at her. He wore a grey sweatshirt with his camera around his neck, and had a mild case of bed head. His blue eyes reminded her of a dog; begging, pleading with her to please, please, please come outside.
"Fine," she relented. "I'll come with you…but this better be good."
"Great!" he said enthusiastically, and then quickly moved outside. After a few minutes, he poked his head in the tent again. "You're coming out, right?"
She still lay in the same position. "Yes."
Finally Sara pulled on her jeans and his fleece jacket, and stumbled outside. She yawned several times as she followed him off the campsite's path, and through some trees. He stopped before a large oak. She refrained from groaning in frustration; they were standing in the middle of a large mud puddle.
Grissom searched some of the leaves for a moment, then spoke in an excited whisper. "I was hoping he'd be here when we came back." Carefully, he pointed to one of the leaves. "Look what I found."
There, a green and black caterpillar crawled along, seemingly enjoying the early morning. It took her sleep-addled mind a minute to think of its identity. "A forest tent caterpillar."
He nodded happily. "I got up early, and went for a walk. When I passed by this tree, I happened to find him just sitting here." Bringing the camera to his face, he took a few pictures. "I told you you wanted to see this."
She smiled widely as she listened to him. "Forest tent caterpillars are defoliators. They strip the tree of its leaves as soon as the eggs hatch."
"Do they turn into a butterfly?"
"They change into buff-colored moths, and they don't live for more than a few days."
For such an interesting insect, it was a little disappointing to hear the forest tent caterpillar morphed into a moth. And not even a pretty moth; it was the color of the memos Ecklie sent out to the staff. At least it was fun to watch the caterpillar's body curl slightly as it moved about the leaf.
"It's a good thing he's fairly harmless. I don't have to worry about you trying to get it to bite you," she commented lightly.
He glanced up from his intense study of the insect to mock scowl at her. "You know, I did go back to the yellow jacket's nest a few weeks after I was stung."
Tilting her head, she stared at Grissom in disbelief. "You did not."
"I had asked my dad why they stung me, and he told me the yellow jackets were defending their home; that I had disturbed them. So I decided to go back."
"Why?"
"To apologize to them."
The seriousness of his tone caused Sara to double over, laughing hard. It was a pleasant combination of oddness and sweetness that the man before her had once sat at a yellow jacket nest to apologize for poking their home with a stick. It made perfect sense because he often spoke to the tarantula like it was cat, and cheered his roaches to victory like they were prize–winning greyhounds. After she calmed down, she looked into his eyes and gave him the first response that came to mind.
"I love you."
Her smile immediately vanished as her heart dropped to her stomach. Her declaration hadn't gone unnoticed by Grissom, who stared at her with wide, surprised eyes, his mouth hanging open, and most of the color drained from his face.
That made up for the fact her face was bright red. She could feel the hot burn of embarrassment from her hairline to the top of her shoulders.
"I-I…uh,um…I didn't…uh…"
From the time she met him, she found Grissom to be a pain in the ass. He was closed off; often clueless; never talked about his feelings, but when he did, the meaning was always cryptic; oblivious to the world around him…
But in between her frustrating encounters with him, she'd had rare moments where they'd laugh together and he'd comfort her with words after bad cases and even though he never said anything, his actions told her he cared about her. She'd fallen in love with for over ten years, and was in deep.
But neither had said the actual words to each other. Sara wanted to for so long, but didn't want to push Grissom too far, too fast. Maybe he wasn't ready for that sort of commitment. But if that was true, where was this relationship going?
Sara suspected he felt the same way about her because of the way he was with her. He'd stay up with her after nightmares, even if it meant he only got three hours of sleep; when she would spend the night at his townhouse, he'd always make her a lunch to bring to work; he laughed at all her jokes, including the really bad, not-so-funny ones; and he'd kiss her goodbye in the evenings and tell her to be careful and if they weren't together, he'd phone to relay the same message.
She knew he wasn't a man of many words, but she still wanted to hear him say he loved her.
"I-I wanted to wait…I d-didn't mean to put you on the spot…you-you…"
And of all the times to say it, why now? Here she was, in the middle of the woods, in the chilly dawn hours, staring at some caterpillar, ankle deep in mud, telling Gil Grissom she loved him…talk about romantic settings.
Managing a nervous chuckle, she stuttered, "Okay, I…feel…that way about you." She quickly added, "But it's okay if you don't feel that way about me! I just…I blurted it out, and now you know and you should know, and I hope this doesn't change anything because I don't want to put you in an uncomfortable situation, and--"
Grissom stepped forward and put a finger to her lips, effectively silencing her. Sara tentatively looked into his eyes, afraid of what she might find. Instead of rejection and fear, there was the purest shade of blue she'd ever seen mixed with the softness of his gaze.
Tilting his head to the side, his chest rose and fell quickly and he balled his hands into tight fists. "Sara," he said quietly. "I love you too."
Her breathing rate sped up considerably, and she started to feel a little dizzy. But her heart felt incredibly light and her limbs tingled. Before getting lost in the euphoric feeling, she had to make sure she heard him correctly. "You-you love me?"
He nodded solemnly. "I do."
"Really?"
This time he chuckled as he moved a strand of hair off her cheek. "Yes, I really do."
"Oh…okay then," Sara replied dumbly before grinning like an idiot. Grissom mirrored her expression, and carefully framed her face with his hands. She more felt, than heard him, when he murmured "I love you," before their lips met in a sweet, deep, gentle kiss.
Somewhere in her mind, the minute part that hadn't melted into a pile of saccharine goo, had determined saying "I love you" now wasn't a bad idea. After all, the geek had gotten the bug and the girl.
"These are beautiful flowers," Sara commented as she fingered the daisies. "When did get these?"
Grissom placed the vegetables on the grill. "I just got them on the way home from the bank."
Shaking her head, she knew that was a lie; the grocery store and nearest florist was not on the way home from the bank, meaning he went out of his way to buy them.
There was a small white card attached to the vase with her name on it. While his attention was on the food, she opened the card. Inside the message read, I hope this makes your week better. I love you-G.
She came up behind him, and wrapped her arms around his waist, snuggling into his back. "Thank you…for bringing the daisies home."
He turned in her embrace, and kissed her briefly. "You're welcome," he said. "You know Chrysanthemum maximum or Shasta daisies are among the best for attracting butterflies. The colors--"
She giggled as she silenced him with a kiss.
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TBC
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And I am proud to say I am a Princess Bride thief ;)
