Thanks for all of the love so far!
This chapter is rated M for sexual content, and a swear word.
I'm not great at writing sex scenes, and i try not to be too "smutty"... so please bare with me. I hope this is in character!
They had caught the bastard.
McKeen was in custody at Desert Palm, with no chance of walking free for the next 25 years to life. Part of him hoped that the moron would die from his gun shot wound, but Grissom knew that spending the rest of his sorry life behind bars as a "cop killer" was the more deserved punishment. He could rot, for all he cared.
It had been the second longest 72 hours of his life, second only to those hours she had been missing in the desert.
She.
Sara.
His Sara.
She had come back. Come home.
In all honesty he had figured she would, at least for the funeral. Warrick was her friend and her family; but he didn't realize how hard it would hit him when she did.
She had been so beautiful, sitting there against his desk.
Her cheeks fuller, her hair shorter, her hips a little wider. God, how he longed to hold her body against his and touch every inch of her broken self with his equally damaged finger tips.
Reality was, though, that neither got the chance to talk much after Catherine walked in. They had gotten straight to work.
She showed him the custody video of Warrick. They didn't talk about it. She just put her hand of his lower back after it was over, and then Archie walked into the AV lab.
She had brought him a coffee after running some errands to the funeral home, and told him he needed to lay down otherwise he would collapse. She wasn't wrong. He had been pushing on 40 hours with no sleep, and the migraine behind his eyes was threatening to put him out of commission.
"I know you want to catch him, but you'll be no good to anyone if you're shut inside a dark room with a migraine, Gil. Rest. Please." She had said softly, as she brushed metaphorical "chalk" from his cheek.
She had always been the one to over react, lose perspective, get too emotionally involved and stay up for days at a time. It used to always be him telling her to take a step back.. but this time the roles were reversed. She was caring for him and his emotional and physical needs.
She had suggested he go home for a rest in his bed, but he declined, and instead said his office couch would do fine for a few hours. Knowing it wouldn't be worth the debate, she agreed, and stayed with him in his office, making plans on her laptop at his desk while he slept. She locked the door and texted Greg to ask no one to bother them while Grissom slept.
Everyone else has gone home to shower and nap, but not him. He needed the time.
Now, finally, McKeen was in custody and there was a sense of limbo in the air. It was done. All that was left to do was to say goodbye.
No more crime to solve, no more chase. It was done. Time to just pack up and go home as if it were the end of any old shift.
In his office, he was packing up his briefcase lazily, putting off the inevitable. He knew once he got home, once he shut the door to his sanctuary, the dam would break and the tears would fall and he wasn't ready for it. He wasn't ready to break.
"You headed home?" Sara asked as she stood in his doorway with her arms crossed. A picture perfect image of how she had been several times before. The same words. The same posture. The same woman.
"Yeah." He sighed. "Are you coming with me?"
Sara quirked a sad smile, as he approached and turned off the office light. "Do you want me to? I-I wasn't sure, so I have tentative reservations at The-"
"No, Sara. That's ridiculous. It's your home. I want you to." Grissom interrupted her with a nod, "I need too to, please."
"Ok." She replied, breathily.
Knowing she wouldn't have a vehicle here and that she had probably gotten a cab, he silently led her out into the parking garage. They passed Nick on the way, and he gave them a friendly, knowing nod and a somber " 'Night."
Grissom took her duffle bag and put it in the popped trunk before joining her in the front seat and starting the ignition. They drove in silence, but before they left the lot, Sara reached for his right hand and brought it back to her warm lap.
They hadn't spoken much, since she had left. At least not the last few months.
A few phone calls at the beginning, a couple of emails, but nothing recently. They were in a place of uncertainty. She knew she wasn't coming back any time soon, and he knew he couldn't leave the lab. They were in love, but essentially lived completely separate lives now. Any relationship in that state eventually withers.
Sara had been staying in the bay, she had found a cheap apartment to rent while she went through some therapy for her PTSD and tried to reconnect with her mother. She had told him the first couple weeks she had left that she had taken up drumming lessons, of all things, to give her a diversion. Apparently she had been doing really well, too. She joked that it was her raging anger that made her enjoy hitting things and making loud noises, but Grissom had always known she was a musically inclined person. It didn't surprise him one bit.
How he wouldn't like to take his anger out on a hollow cylinder right about now.
As he pulled into the driveway of his condo and shut off the ignition, he felt Sara squeeze his hand.
"It will be fine." She whispered, shakily, knowing why he was afraid to step inside his home.
She knew as well as he did that he had been holding onto his emotions for dear life for the last three days, and that once he was inside and in her arms he would break. She also knew he didn't want to break, let alone let her see him do it. She knew that feeling all too well.
She was reminded of the case with the Greenvalley Showgirls, when they had been in a similar position, except it had been Sara who was on the cusp of falling apart.
He had drawn her a lavender bath, and sat behind her, massaging her hips. Afterwards, he had held her, skin to skin, as she cried and fell asleep.
It had been so simple.
It always was, with them.
They psyched themselves up for these massive displays of emotion and events when in reality, it all came so naturally. From the first time they made love to the last time they made love, it all just made so much sense. It was so simple.
He nodded, and got out of the car slowly, grabbing Sara's bag from the trunk, before following her up the walkway. She still had her key, and unlocked his door for him.
They had decided to leave Hank with the sitter one last night, Sara had already made the call earlier that day, so there was no over eager slobbery puppy bounding at them as they walked into the cold space, just silence and darkness.
Sara flipped on the familiar lights to reveal everything exactly how she had left it. It was as if he had barely lived here, the last six months.
She glanced over to the red leather couch next to the entrance way and noticed a pillow and a throw blanket, as well as a pair of reading glasses and an empty whiskey tumbler. She realized he had probably slept here several times, like a second bed, and it broke her heart.
She noticed the kitchen was next to spotless. No dishes in the sink like there had usually been. No stack of case files on the kitchen island to go over together over breakfast. The plants in the windowsills were as good as dead. It reminded her of his old apartment, before they had gotten together. Her first dinner there was warm and romantic and full of excitement, but his home looked barely lived in. Like the home of a true man, married to his career. Now, it was like he had just reverted back to who he was before they became intimate.
As if he could sense what she was thinking, Grissom spoke suddenly, "I haven't really been home for much lately, aside from sleeping and showering."
Sara turned to him sadly, and nodded.
Instead of harping on the issue, she removed her shoes and her jacket and made her way down the flight of metal stairs, and walked to the kitchen to start the kettle. As if she had never left. She knew where everything was.
Following her down the stairs, Grissom cleared his throat and caught her eye as he mumbled, "I'm going to go wash up. Put your bag in the bedroom... please."
It was an invitation.
He wanted her in his bed, despite it all. He wanted her near him. He wanted to hold her.
...
Sara poured two mugs of green tea, realizing that neither would likely be drank, as she heard the shower still running from the bathroom. It had only been about 5 minutes, but she was certain it had been 5 minutes of inner battle. He was the kind of man to be in and out within minutes, unless, of course she had joined him for a more steamy shower.
Should she join him now? Not for... that... but for comfort?
Would he want her to join him? Or did he need space?
He was a hard man to read on a good day, but this day, this very very bad day only came after months of distance between them. They hadn't had sex in over six months. They hadn't seen each other naked in just as long. She had left him, and judging by the state of their.. his home, she had also broken him.
Deciding to go with her heart, Sara took a deep breath and stepped into the steamy bathroom and listened. Complete silence came from behind the shower door. No routine movements of bathing, no gasping through tears, nothing.
"Sara?" His weak voice asked, suddenly, sensing her presence. He sounded vulnerable and honestly, desperate and nauseated. Like that quiver he would get in his voice during a migraine when he was literally holding back from gagging.
"Yeah." She returned, unbuttoning and unzipping her pants as she slid them and her cotton underwear down her long legs. "I'm here."
He didn't say anything else as she removed her shirt and bra, and drew back the door ands stepped inside the steam filled chamber.
What she saw made her want to vomit.
If she had anything in her stomach other than coffee and chips from the break room, she probably would have.
Grissom was so pale, and leaning against the cool tile wall facing her as the steaming hot, scolding water beat down on his back and shoulders and head. The first thing she did was reach behind him to turn the temperature down, just slightly, so that he didn't actually burn his skin. It was already red and raw.
She had felt he was thinner from when she had hugged him earlier, but without his baggy clothes she realized just how thin he had gotten. He looked weak, almost sickly. He was hunched over, his curly dark hair dripping water into his red, blood shot eyes. He wouldn't look at her. His lips quivered.
"Oh, baby." Sara sighed as she closed the distance between them and pressed her wet naked body against his. She wrapped her arms around him tightly, and felt his face burrow into the space of her neck.
He broke.
She had never seen a man sob before, but that was the only possible way to describe what was happening in her arms. He was sobbing.
He was loud as he cried, too.
Heartbreak and absolute anguish escaped from his mouth in deep cries as she held him as tightly as she possibly could and felt her own eyes well up and overflow.
Of course she was heartbroken about Warrick but she had always been a realist. Warrick was gone. He wasn't in any more pain. He was just gone. But Gil, her lover, was very much here and very much hurting. She knew too, it was more than just Warrick he was crying over.
It was her. It was the last year of their lives.
He never properly dealt with her kidnapping, despite his few tears when they had come home. She wasn't sure, now, if he had properly mourned her when she left six months ago. She was sure he had cried, but this release of emotions was so much deeper than she could have ever expected from him.
If she didn't know him well enough, his sobs would have frightened her. It was so wildly out of character for him. He had clearly been hanging on by the thinnest of threads and needed her permission, almost, to break. Reassurance that she would catch him. For the first time in their relationship, he needed her to be the strong one and keep him from drowning.
If it hadn't have been for the wall they were both partially leaning on, Sara was certain his knees would have given out and dropped them to the floor of the shower.
They cried for what felt like hours, and she rubbed circles over his back as he tried to catch his breath. Eventually, he did. Eventually his breathing evened out as he turned his head against her shoulder and kissed the skin on her neck.
"I love you." Sara whispered with a shaky voice as she felt his hands move lower to her bottom, and pull her warm core closer to his.
"I'm sorry, I-I..." he began, shaking his head, as his insecurity began to overtake him.
"Stop it, Gil." Sara spoke firmly, cupping his cheeks with her hands. "Don't do that. Don't apologize for having emotions and for mourning."
"I just keep feeling him go." Grissom quivered. "I keep feeling his body go heavy in my arms, Sara."
Sara said nothing.
Instead, she squeezed his body, and then reached behind her to grab his shower gel and luffa.
His eyebrow raised, posing a question, and Sara simply quirked her lips in response. Usually it was him washing her after a long shift.
It had become somewhat of an unspoken ritual of theirs over the last two and a half years, Gil washing her. It was intimate, and was meant to be a complete surrender of egotism and emotion. He would say, "Let me wash it away." after particularly difficult cases.
"Let me wash it away, Gil." Sara whispered as she kissed his neck softly, and then brushed her lips softly against his.
Their first kiss in half a year.
It was barely a touch, but it was a step.
Slowly and deliberately she rubbed the soapy luffa in circles around his body. His arms, his torso, he back, and as she dropped to her knees before him to wash his legs and his behind, he let out a small moan.
Despite the horrific and heartbreaking situation before them, he was still a man, and he still responded to a beautiful naked woman's touch as any would.
Sara looked up at him and saw the look of embarrassment, shame, on his face and smiled up at him with her mischievous grin. She placed a gentle and quick kiss on his member, and then stood back up to meet his gaze.
She couldn't take it away. She couldn't change what happened and the things he had saw, but she could, even if for a moment, take his mind off of it.
Knowing how physical of a man he was, and knowing he had been as celibate as her these last six months, she knew what he needed and what he craved.
Placing a kiss to the side of his mouth, Sara reached her right hand down to his member and wrapped her long fingers around him eliciting a deep groan from his lips again.
As she stroked him softly in her hand, Grissom buried his face into the crook of her neck again. This time instead of tears, he was loud with sounds of appreciation and pleasure as Sara tightened her grip just enough and met the pace she knew he liked.
He was already so close, she could tell. He was hard, and the tip of him was already slippery, and his hips had begun to involuntary rock into her hand.
Keeping you her rhythm, she felt his body stiffen as he suddenly reached his hand down to her wrist stop her.
"Sara, no." He breathed heavily into her neck, "In you. Please."
Without another word he lifted her wrists above her head and essentially pinned her to the shower wall as she lifted her right leg up on the small shower bench to her side.
It was a position she had become intimately familiar with, and she saw the desperation in his eyes as he released her one arm to carefully guide himself to her entrance.
"Ok?" He breathed, searching her face for permission.
"Please." She nodded, bracing herself on his shoulder with her left hand, her right still gloriously pinned above her head.
As he entered her, both let out uncontrollable sighs of absolute relief. Grissom's head dipped back down to it's favourite spot on her shoulder as he breathed and remained still for several seconds.
God, she felt like home.
Sara whimpered as he moved, ever so slightly, and felt the tears in her eyes spilled out.
He made love to her with such desperation and such heartache.
She knew he wouldn't last long, he had already been so close. Feeling him enter her, she knew she wouldn't last either.
As they moved together against the shower wall, Sara let out a loud groan as the hand that had been holding her wrist moved to her hips and squeezed tightly.
"Fuck, I-I can't.." she breathed against his shoulder as she felt her climax build with his desperate thrusts.
"Let go Sara, let it go." He grumbled into her as his own orgasm overtook him powerfully.
They came together, her muscles milking him as he spilled into her, and let out out near screams of pleasure.
Catching their breath, Sara let out a chuckle as the water from her hair dripped down her cheeks. Grissom kissed her lips softly, a warm hello after such a long absence.
"Hi." He smiled, his eyes momentarily clear and not heavy with sadness.
"Hi yourself." Sara breathed as he slipped himself out of her and she returned her foot to the floor, feeling his hit seed leaking out of her body in an all too familiar, comforting way.
"God, Sara." Grissom exhaled as he kissed her forehead. "Thankyou."
She let out another small chuckle, "What, for the sex?"
He replied with a sad undertone, "For coming back."
More to come!
Thanks for reading, and as always please rate and review!!