"Do not be afraid; our fate
Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift."
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno, the Divine Comedy.
The car came to a juddering stop inches from Sara's legs, close enough for her to feel heat radiating from the engine through the hood. Her heart was pounding in her chest, the sudden surge of adrenaline keeping her frozen to the spot. For a moment, she could only stare, wide-eyed and panting, at the driver. The blonde woman was slumped forward, both hands wrapped around the Citroën C4's steering wheel in a vice grip.
Sara frowned. Was that a cell phone in the woman's right hand? She too was breathing hard, her face as white as a sheet, and Sara knew that just like her she'd had the fright of her life. Hank let out a bark, and Sara whipped her head round to him. He was fine, unharmed but unhinged, whining as he restlessly paced the small square of pavement at her level. The lead that was dangling from his collar dragged on the concrete.
Sara's breathing was returning to a more normal rhythm as her shock began to fade, briefly making way to relief, before it turned to anger. The woman had been on the phone while driving too fast in a busy city street. Setting the shopping bag she was still clutching on the ground by her feet Sara turned thunderous eyes on the driver and slammed both hands on the car hood, ready to share a piece of her mind.
The woman was sitting back in her seat now, rubbing her neck where the seat belt had restrained her when she'd braked so sharply. The car door opened. The woman stepped out of it, gesturing and letting out a string of French that was way beyond Sara's comprehension. What was clear though, was the tone of the message. She wasn't apologising for her lapse in concentration or enquiring whether Sara was hurt, but appeared to be laying the blame for the near accident solely at Sara's feet.
Sara felt the heat rise in her face. The tongue lashing went both ways, Sara giving as much as she took – in French and when that failed her, which was very soon, in English. A small crowd of people had gathered, all witnesses, all putting their two cents worth, Hank joining in among them. Cars were gradually piling up behind the Citroën, impatiently tooting their horns, adding to the spectacle.
Sometime during the kerfuffle Grissom showed up, breathlessly emerging from the building onto the opposite sidewalk. Sara didn't notice his panicked expression turning to relief and then amusement as he stood there, watching the show with a cocked brow and a wry smile, not until tail wagging and lead dragging Hank sauntered over to him on the other side of the road.
Grissom knelt down and ruffled his coat affectionately. The C4 driver took advantage of the distraction to get back inside her car and rev the engine. The crowd began to disperse. Quickly refocusing, Sara picked up her bag and moved out of the way, joining Hank and Grissom on the sidewalk outside their building. The show was over.
"Pauvre con," Sara threw under her breath at the retreating car.
Grissom looked up at her, suppressing a smile. He picked up Hank's lead and stood up with a wince. "Good to see all those French lessons are paying off," he said, reaching an arm around her shoulders and pulling her to him, "but you're forgetting to agree your noun."
Sara turned a puzzled frown on him. "What?
He loosened his hold on her shoulder, shrugged his. "Grammar doesn't stop even for cuss words. The ditsy blonde was a woman, so you need to use the feminine form of asshole. It should have been pauvre conne."
Her scowl slowly morphed into a smile. "Yeah?"
He gave her a soft nod. "Yeah."
"I'll file it for future use," she retorted with a twitch of her lips.
Grissom took in and blew out a deep breath, his expression sobering. "You scared the crap out of me, Sara. I saw the whole of your life flash in front of my eyes."
Sara's brow furrowed with puzzlement. "That should be my line." She aimed for a light tone, but failed miserably. She too had been shaken, more than she cared to admit to him or even herself. "And for the record, it didn't."
"What didn't?"
"My life; it didn't flash in front of my eyes.
"Still," he said, twisting his lips in such a way that told her he didn't think the whole situation was anything to joke about. "Honey, that was a close one."
"She was driving far too fast," she defended. Heat was rising in her cheeks again. "And she was on her phone―"
"Come here," he interrupted softly, putting a stop to her rant. Beckoning her to him, he opened his arm out.
Sara's face softened, and there on the sidewalk she fell into his arms. Closing her eyes she let out a long breath. Suddenly she felt spent and a little weak at the knees as the adrenaline drained away from her body. His body was strong and solid, and she found herself clinging to him that little bit tighter. When she reopened her eyes she was looking down at his feet. Her lips pinched, badly hiding her amusement. Giggling she pushed away from him and met his eyes.
"You know you came out in your slippers, right?"
Grissom looked down to his feet and laughed. "So I did."
They never noticed the curtain twitching back into place in the ground floor window of Madame Louboutin's apartment, nor the lingering smile on her face as she picked up her hot iron and pressed it to her husband's workpants.
As soon as the door to their apartment closed behind them, Sara was physically led to the lounge and instructed to sit down and put her feet up. Her sandals were removed, a French magazine thrust in her hands, her trusted French/English dictionary conveniently placed on the coffee table within reach. The stereo was switched on, a CD carefully selected from the shelf, inserted into the stereo and played. She frowned as she tried to place the composer. It wasn't Grissom's usual taste.
"It's Ludivico Einaudi," he said, lifting the CD case in her eye line when he noticed her expression. "His music has been described as the welcome sound of stillness in a hectic world. Very apropos, wouldn't you say?"
Sara's lips twitched up. "Gil, I'm fine. This…" she motioned at herself on the couch, at her bare feet, at the soft but uplifting music playing in the background, "is lovely and sweet, but totally unnecessary."
His expression was soft with concern. "You've suffered a shock."
"Hardly a shock. It just got my blood pumping a little, that's all."
"Humour me this, will you? Let me be your nurse, just for a bit. Pay back some of your kindness."
She paused. Why not indulge him, she thought, if it made him happy? "Love and kindness," she amended quietly.
His face lit up with mischief. "Love and kindness," he repeated meekly. "Cup of tea, my dear?"
Sara made a face at his teasing. "Come and sit with me first. You had a fright too."
"I can't. I got to make a start on lunch."
Her gaze and tone turned pleading. "S'il te plaît?"
Grissom stared at her at length as though weighing up his options. She couldn't believe the change in him. Maybe this near miss was just the jolt he'd needed to get him out of his lethargic state of mind and back to normal. Smiling wider at him, she batted her eyelashes. He covered the distance to her and dropping down onto the couch beside her draped his left arm across her shoulders while she instinctively leaned her head against him. At that moment in time and despite everything happening in their lives she couldn't be happier.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked him after a moment in companionable silence.
He sighed. "You first."
"All right. I was thinking how happy I am, right now sitting here with you." She looked over at him and smiled. "You?"
He shrugged. "I was thinking the same."
"No, you weren't."
His lips twisted to the side, a sure sign she'd read him right. "I was merely thinking how lucky I am. You could have been hit. You could have been hurt badly. Just like that. In front of my eyes and I was powerless to make it stop."
"But I wasn't."
He gave her a soft nod, kissed her forehead, and she settled herself back against his shoulder. This is exactly how I feel all of the time, she wanted to tell him, powerless to make anything stop. She felt his lips brush the top of her head as he tightened his hold on her and she closed her eyes. How could he feel lucky? Despite it all, he felt lucky– lucky simply because she hadn't been hurt. Tears built behind her closed lids, and again she found herself praying that, just like it hadn't been her time earlier, it wasn't his time yet.
"Let me get you some sweet tea," he said, drawing her out of her melancholy. Gently, he disengaged his arm and pushed to his feet.
Sara smiled and nodded her head and picking up the bag of groceries he disappeared to the kitchen. "This is silly," she muttered to herself and got up from the couch to go and help him.
"Sara," she heard him say in a warning tone before she'd had time to move, "Keep your butt on that couch."
Sara's head snapped to the doorway. It was empty. "All right," she mumbled as she fell back onto the couch.
She picked up her magazine and flicked through the pages without much enthusiasm; she'd had as much French as she could take for one day. She'd check her messages on the iPad instead. Her inbox listed five unread messages: two were junk and she deleted them, one was from Greg, another one from Nick and the last one from her mother's care facility asking her to call back – still too early in Vegas to do it now and she figured that if it was urgent they would have said.
Next she opened Greg's message – a little lab gossip, an attachment to a video clip for a new band she would absolutely adore and a heartfelt "I miss you" and "When will you be back?" at the end. She would reply to him later. She'd deliberately kept Nick's message for last and she hesitated before pressing on the 'next' arrow. She guessed it was about Javier Santiago's trial which was due to start later in the week and hoped it wasn't an impassioned plea for her to cut short her 'vacation'.
"Sara? You okay?"
Grissom's voice startled her out of her daydream before she could open Nick's email. He'd set the mug of tea he'd made in front of her on the coffee table.
"Sure," she said, giving him a wide smile as she flipped the iPad cover shut.
He offered her some of the apple he was munching on, which she declined with a headshake. "It's just…you got that look on your face."
Her smile faded. "I got an email from Nick. He's testifying in a court case for me."
Sitting down next to her, Grissom took another bite of the apple. "Is it a big case?" he asked, chewing.
Sara took in a breath and nodded her head. "You remember I worked a murder case last year – well, three actually – three teenage girls. We found them in shallow graves lying side by side."
"That's right," he said. "But you only had enough hard evidence to convict the guy of the murder of the third girl."
Again she nodded. "The DA's going to try to get him on circumstantials for the other two murders." Restless energy coursing through her, she reached forward for her tea which she cradled in her hands as she sat back in the seat.
"Do…do they need you back?" His voice was barely above a whisper.
Sara looked up. "No. Absolutely not," she said with conviction. "I was primary but Nick worked the case with me. And my notes are―"
"Extensive."
She smiled. "Yeah." Raising the mug of tea to her lips she took a careful sip.
He took in a breath, let it out slowly. "I mean…it's fine with me if you need to go back." He flashed her a brief smile. "I understand. You worked hard on that case, and besides I'm sure your mother could do with a visit."
"Gil, I am not going home without you. Work can do without me. My mother is fine. I spoke to her on the phone last week. If anything, I think we have more to say to each other on the phone than we do face to face." She paused, suddenly remembering the email she'd just received, and steered the conversation onto safer grounds, or maybe not she realised belatedly. "Talking of mothers…" She slid her mug onto the table and lifted both her hands up in front of her, wriggling her fingers, "I'm going to need to brush up on my sign language."
He pursed his face at her. "You and me, both," he said in a scoff. He caught her left hand in mid-air and turned it over. "Why haven't you put your ring back on?" he asked, glancing up.
She looked over at him with surprise. "I don't know. I—Do you want me to?"
"Only if you want to. I mean, you would never have taken it off if it hadn't been for what I did."
It would be strange wearing hers if he wasn't wearing his. "I thought I'd wait until you could wear yours again. I thought about having it resized, but then I thought…" She sighed and then pinched her lips to hide her growing emotion. "I don't need a ring to know that you love me, just as much as you don't need one to know that I love you. Gil, when all this is over, when you've beaten the cancer and been given the all clear, I thought we could…exchange rings again. I don't know, maybe it's silly."
"It's not silly," he said, regarding her solemnly. Tears clouded his eyes, but he kept his fears and misgivings unvoiced. Finding no other words, he simply pulled her into his arms and held her as tightly as he would if it was for the last time. When he pulled back from her, he was somewhat composed again. "It's just…" his shoulder lifted and there was a sudden glint of mischief in his eyes, "I never told my mother that we—I…well, you know, and she might find it strange that you're not wearing your ring anymore."
"Well, then, we'll just have to explain about our little plan, and include our mothers in our tête-à-tête."
"I don't know about that," he muttered unhappily, and she laughed.
The following Thursday came and went without any more hiccups. Grissom packed an overnight bag, just in case, and they went to his early morning hospital appointment a little ahead of time. Grissom underwent a very thorough battery of tests. Blood was drawn, integrated CT and PET scans done concurrently, the results of which would be discussed in detail the following Monday.
The experience was strangely underwhelming for Sara, if utterly draining for Grissom, especially as she had to stay outside for most of it. On the plus side though, she had plenty of time to inquire about a worthwhile charity to donate their roulette winnings to, and they were home by early afternoon, the much-feared overnight stay not required.
Saturday seemed to be upon them all too soon, but everything was ready to welcome Betty. A room had been booked in a two-star hotel a couple of streets away. A long stay rate including breakfast had been negotiated, and it had been decided that Betty would share all her other meals with them. Grissom was determined that his cancer wouldn't stop the three of them from having a good time and doing all the touristy sights and attractions, a visit to the Louvre being top of Betty's list.
Betty had been so excited at the prospect of a visit when they'd first broached the topic. Grissom hadn't been able to tell her about the cancer, still hadn't fathomed how he would. He never said it, but Sara knew that he'd planned this trip to be a sort of farewell, the goodbyes to the people that he loved he'd spoken of when they had first got together.
Betty's flight was due to land at Charles de Gaulle airport at 14.10. Grissom, who had spent the morning like a restless tiger, insisted they left early – God forbid they should get caught in traffic or that the plane landed early, even though he'd rung the airline and knew it wouldn't. At the arrivals hall, Sara suggested they sat down and got themselves a coffee while they waited but Grissom declined, insisting he wanted to remain within sight of the gate. The minutes ticked by, too slowly.
Sara was watching a little girl spin around a post when she felt Grissom's hand slip inside hers. "That's it," he said when she looked over at him, and they both looked up at the arrivals monitor. "She's here. Her plane's landed."