Author's Notes: Thanks to PhDelicious for all her help, and double thanks to everyone for hanging in with me even though my writing time's been cut in half and updates are so much slower. You all rock:)
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The Last Embrace
by Kristen Elizabeth
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May 1989
"And now, it's my great pleasure to introduce this year's valedictorian. This young lady not only holds the highest GPA in her class, she graduates tonight with a full scholarship to Harvard University. Please give a warm welcome to Miss Sara Sidle."
The salutatorian who had spoken before her had an entire section of the gym full of family members who had jumped to their feet in wild congratulatory joy at the mere mention of his name.
But Sara walked to the podium to nothing but the polite applause of hundreds of strangers, and her classmates who might as well have been. She tried to smile, but public speaking had never been one of her favorite things. Her hands trembled a bit as she smoothed down the copy of her speech that she'd had folded in her fist. Not that she thought she'd need it. She had the whole thing memorized.
"Thank you, Mr. Welch. Good evening teachers, honored guests, and my fellow students. It's my privilege to address you tonight on behalf of the Class of 1989." She paused for effect, but also to take a calming breath.
"Graduation is traditionally the time when we think the most about the next step in our lives. For months now, everyone gathered here tonight has planned for, dreamed of and probably even feared what's to come. But as Albert Einstein once said 'I never think of the future; it comes soon enough.' Like Einstein, it's been my experience that you can't plan for the future. It happens whether you're prepared or not. The best you can hope to do is learn from the past and live in the present."
"We're not friends. In fact, I'm sure many of you looked at your programs and were surprised to learn I was in your class at all. We didn't cheer together at football games or sell brownies at bake sales. In ten years, I know I'll have to introduce myself at the reunion as though we've never met before. But if I can make any impact on you today, let it be this. The past is over. The future has yet to come. The present is where you live your life. It is the only time that is truly yours."
Sara looked down at her speech, willing her eyes to remain dry. "I wish the people who taught me this lesson could be here tonight. But in their absence, I have learned perhaps the greatest lesson of my life. Self-reliance. We are all about to come face to face with true independence. I hope we temper it with responsibility and maturity. For as Simone Weil said, 'the future is made of the same stuff as the present,' and if that is to be believed, then how we live our lives within the next few months could very well define us in the future far better than the labels we have worn for the past four years. Or even the past eighteen."
A warm breeze swept over her, making her tassel dance. "Ten years from now, we'll gather together again on the brink of a new millennium. I look forward to seeing who we will be and how far we will have gone. Until then, I wish the Class of 1989 the best of luck. Thank you."
It took a second for the applause to come, like the audience wasn't quite sure how to respond to her words.
Sara slipped back into her seat next to the salutatorian. His name was Tyler. They'd had advanced chemistry together, and even though their GPA's had competed for the coveted title of valedictorian for a long time, they hadn't ever spoken. As the principal began calling out names to come up and receive diplomas, Tyler took little, semi-discreet glances at her until she finally acknowledged him. "What?"
"Your parents didn't come tonight."
She stared straight ahead at the stage. "No."
"Why not?"
"They had better things to do, I guess," Sara replied. Like making license plates and pushing up daises.
"That's really rough." Because he sounded genuine, she forgave him for changing the subject so quickly. "Listen, there's going to be a party later out at the Point. Big 'bonfire on the beach' thing. You interested?"
She had the vague notion that his interest lay less in getting to know her as a person, and more to do with getting to know what color her underwear was. After Cassandra had passed away from breast cancer eight months earlier and Sara had gone to live in a group home, she'd come to recognize the early warning signs that someone might be thinking she'd make a fun playmate. And so far, she'd been successful in avoiding any and all advances.
But she would be clear across the country in less than a week. And while Tyler might not have known her name before that night, she'd certainly noticed him. Not many guys could solve a quadratic equation in under a minute, and make jeans look really good.
She hadn't been expecting a ball of light anymore than she'd been expecting an orgasm, so she wasn't disappointed when she got neither that night. Tyler was surprisingly nice about the whole thing. He even stuck around for a few minutes afterwards to make sure she was all right before he rejoined his friends.
Sara didn't regret losing her virginity down the beach from where her classmates were celebrating by getting plastered on cheap beer. But she did make herself a promise as she sat on the sand, watching the waves crash up onto the rocks.
This would be the only time she had sex without any emotional investment at all. If she put her body out there, her heart would go with it. And she'd risk having it broken if it meant she would never feel so empty again.
"Elaine Maxwell," she said to the surf and the stars. "Whether I fail or succeed shall be no man's doing but my own."
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The body was a mess of cross-contamination, having been moved at least twice before a Boy Scout troop on a quest for hiking merit badges stumbled upon it. Usually, Grissom was up for the challenge of figuring out which bugs had arrived first, and determining how long they'd been there. But in the days after Sara's near miscarriage, he found himself almost too distracted to work.
He wanted to be by her side, like she'd let him be in the hospital. She'd woken up and reached for his hand, and just like that, his life made sense again.
Grissom collected specimens and took notes, going through the motions of doing his job. But his mind was with Sara. It always had been. Even when he didn't want to think about her, she was there.
Maybe if he'd let her know that, things would have turned out very differently.
"Hey, Grissom." He was jerked out of his thoughts by his partner on the case, turning his head away from the body just in time to see a flash go off in his eyes.
Grinning madly, Greg lowered the camera and examined the digital screen. "Wow. Can you say 'deer in headlights'?"
Grissom was about to ask him if he could say "unemployment" when he realized it would be an empty threat. All he could do was glare at his co-worker. "You have to delete that, you know."
"And eventually I will." Slipping the camera's strap around his neck, Greg knelt down next to him. "So, how long until your friends can give us TOD?"
"When I know, you'll know." He plucked a beetle off the man's sucking chest wound and dropped it in a specimen cup. "What are the most common types of beetles found…"
Greg cut him off with the correct answer delivered in a bored tone. "You realize I've been Level 2 for awhile now, right? I'm moving past the pop quiz stage of our relationship." A moment of awkward silence slipped by as Grissom kept collecting insects. "A lot's changed since you left."
"I realize that." Grissom added a strip of beef jerky from his pocket to the jar.
A cold and dusty wind blew over them. "How's Sara?" Greg suddenly asked.
Grissom paused as he screwed the lid on, sealing up his evidence. "I don't know." There was a slight hitch that he couldn't keep out of his voice. "I haven't seen her since the hospital." He didn't feel the need to add that Sara's life was complicated enough as she waited to see if her baby would survive without the additional burden of having to deal with their complicated relationship.
"I can't believe she's pregnant," the younger man said, shaking his head. "Course, I couldn't believe it the first time, either. Man…" He looked up at the starry sky. "Nick's probably doing cartwheels up there. He wanted a whole passel of kids, you know. Must be a Southern thing. Personally, I…"
"Greg," Grissom cut him off mid-ramble. "I'm sure this man wouldn't appreciate the fact that we're having this discussion over his dead body."
He could feel Greg studying his profile, and he tried to keep the twitch out of his jaw. He should have just let the younger man talk. At least it would have kept him occupied. "Huh. Guess some things haven't changed," Greg noted sagely. He stood up. "I get that even though you're not my boss anymore, you feel like you've gotta keep some distance between us, but I just need to say something here." It took him a second to continue. "I don't know what all happened…why you left…but if you came back just because she's single now…"
The insinuation made him bristle. "Not everything I do revolves around Sara."
Greg frowned. "Why the hell not?" When Grissom looked up at him, he went on, "Do you even know how lucky you are? She had feelings for you, man. And they weren't brotherly. At least Nick knew what he had. It was a lot easier to watch her be in love with someone who loved her back."
"What were they like together?" Grissom couldn't keep the question from slipping out.
"He was happy. She was…"
"She was what?"
Scratching the back of his head, Greg sighed. "There are different levels of happy, I guess."
"They weren't on the same level?" he asked quietly.
"When it came to Cassie, yeah. Absolutely. But it's hard not to be crazy about that kid." Having landed back on a safe topic, Greg's mouth ran off him with again. "Nick sure was. I guess having a job like ours makes you overprotective of your kids. Nick could tell you anything about Cassie, down to her blood type. He wasn't psychotic, just naturally…"
"What is her blood type?"
Greg blinked. "Um…O, I think he said. Why?"
Grissom stood up with his bugs. "I'm going to head back to the lab," he informed his partner without answering his question. "Finish processing and meet me there."
Greg rolled his eyes. "Thank god you said that, or else I might have spent the next hour picking my nose."
With a glare, Grissom left. He drove straight back to the lab, but instead of starting on the linear regression, he used the master key from Catherine's desk to get into the file room.
Fortunately, Nick's personnel file hadn't been moved to storage yet. It was still filed in the employee cabinet, right after Sara's. He pulled both of them, with only a momentary pang of consciousness for the slight invasion of privacy he was about to commit.
The information he wanted was available on both of their emergency cards. His eyes moved back and forth between their files as he processed what he was seeing. When he was absolutely certain, when he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, the revelation was so powerful that he had to remind himself to keep breathing.
Sara's blood type was A. Nick was AB. It was a simple serology equation. A plus AB could not create O. But A plus O could. And as fate would have it, his blood type was O positive.
Cassie was his daughter.
He wasn't sure whether he should thank Greg Sanders or donate his body to the Farm.
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To Be Continued