Disclaimer: I don't own them.
A/N: Sooo, hopefully I'll have chapter eight up by late afternoon today. But, I have some errands to run, so I have to post just this one now. Reviews are loved! :)
Chapter Seven: Las Vegas
Holly Gribbs had just been killed while on a scene, and I had been promoted to Night Shift Supervisor. The last thing I wanted was to have internal affairs come in and interfere in our investigation, question Warrick, and possibly suspend him—if he had done something wrong, we would deal with it… I would even fire him if I had to… but I wanted it to truly be something he deserved, not internal affairs making him a scapegoat.
I don't know why the first person I thought of was Sara, but she was.
I wasn't even sure how to ask her—I had a very strange relationship with Sara. Nine years previously we'd made love in my hotel room, never expecting to see each other again. I had flown home and tried very, very hard to forget her. That night, logically, had seemed like a lapse in judgment. She was a student, I was a guest lecturer—more or less a teacher—and she was fifteen years my junior. Yet I could not get her face—that night—her body—the absolute beauty our lovemaking had been… out of my mind.
She was inescapable, and yet almost unattainable. Unattainable because, idiot that I was, I'd washed her phone number in my jacket pocket. She had never even told me her last name… the paper with the phone number had said "Sara from Boston—row five, seat eleven; brown hair, brown eyes; best sex of your life!"
...Which wasn't untrue.
I even tried to get her information from the university—and was asked whether I had any idea how many Saras a school their size had enrolled. I tried to narrow it down, but it had been an intro level forensics class. There were probably still fifty or more Saras, and she wasn't about to give me personal information about students. I had hoped that she could call Sara and give her my number… but I couldn't ask this woman to call fifty random women and ascertain which one I'd slept with.
And then she called me. I heard the phone ringing, but I'd never given her my number and I was unlisted… so I had assumed it was impossible for her to call me. I'd even resigned myself to the idea that I would never hear from her again, though she featured in my dreams far too often and far too explicitly for me to believe I was truly resigned…
I yelled for Catherine to answer it for me—I'd knocked the mold of ballistics gel we were setting, and if I didn't fix it, it would be hours longer before we could even use the mold… not to mention a huge mess. It was already starting to drip out, onto the floor of my office. I knew there was a reason I'd never done this in here before…
And I can hear her talking… hear her voice change slightly, like she's curious, and I hear the phone call end. At which point she comes to me, the smirk on her face widening when she sees the green colored smears across my arms and forehead.
"Who was it?"
She grins, and her response comes in a voice half-husky and seductive, half-teasing and surprised. "It was uh… 'Sara from Boston.' She says to tell you that 'it's important.'"
By the tone of her voice, I can tell she's guessed what my relationship with Sara is, and finds it humorous. I try to keep my face blank, but I'm excited that she's called me, and she laughs at the look on my face. But almost as soon as I realize my excitement, I also realize a problem. "Did she uh… leave a number?"
Catherine balks, looking surprised. "Well, uh… no. She didn't. …I'm sure she'll realize she didn't leave you one and call back."
I groan. She had left me one. I was just a complete idiot.
She called again, before I'd come in for the day—no number, again. At which point I moved through the crime lab, informing anyone who worked within ten feet of a phone to take numbers from people when they took messages, even if the caller thought the person they were trying to reach would have their number. I got a lot of strange looks, and even a glare from Ecklie, but I didn't care. It was Sara.
But she didn't call me again. And I went back to trying to be resigned. In time, I actually was… years passed, things changed, and I came to terms with my loss, although I never stopped having the dreams about her. True, over time they became the haunting of every few months rather than almost nightly, but they persisted.
And it was a full seven years before I saw her again—sitting in one of my lectures, beautiful as ever, our eyes meeting with as much electricity and heat as the very first time. I wondered vaguely—half-hysterically—if I would always be the teacher to her student, but the realization came fast and hard that I didn't care. She practically ran from the room when I finished my lecture, and though it was completely unlike me, I chased her.
Our conversation was strange—I almost wondered if there wasn't something going on in her personal life that I didn't know about… maybe a relative was sick, or something. She even had tears in her eyes when she walked away from me… but she had told me her last name, and that she now lived in the San Francisco area. I had told her I would look her up, and she had nodded.
So I did. The first conversation was… even stranger. I was pretty sure she was crying. I was half relieved when I was called into work, and then… the following conversations got easier. They were light, and happy, and she made me laugh. I dreamed of her more and more often now, and they stopped being only sex dreams. Not that those didn't come too, but… I often found myself dreaming about having coffee with her. Dreaming that she was a CSI on my team in Vegas. Dreaming about taking her on a roller coaster marathon with me. Dreaming about waking up with her.
And though the dreams were difficult for me, I found myself almost looking forward to them. She wanted us to meet in person again, and I tried desperately to get some time off, but the lab was busier than ever. In truth, we really needed more CSIs on staff. The sex dreams came back with a vengeance after that request, and so when she said we absolutely had to see each other, I bought her a plane ticket to come to Vegas. I would still have to work nights, but even seeing her half-days would be better than not at all.
Of course, there was a serial rapist. Of course. I called her the day she was supposed to fly in, and told her I probably wouldn't be home… and I wasn't. I probably caught a half hour nap on a couch in the lab that whole long weekend. But we caught the guy—we caught him, and that made it worth it. Almost. Maybe. ...Not really.
For a while she stopped asking, and then near the end of February 2000, she started up with fervency again. I wondered if, in the meantime, she had had a boyfriend… and that that was why her requests had dwindled. This made me nervous… hesitant… almost afraid. I made a few excuses, at first, but I got over it… By the time I had though, she had stopped asking again.
And then, Holly Gribbs died. I could not believe one of my team had been killed at a scene. How could that happen? But I didn't want IA involved…
And I called Sara. I called her in to investigate Warrick. I called her in because I could not stand the idea of being away from her anymore. I called her because I was falling in love with her.
