Title: Pizza Boy
Author: Fluffy/Karen
Rating: PG-13 for strong language
Summary: G/S – Sara's leaving, but not the way you think…
Disclaimer: These characters and their situation is not mine. Las Vegas isn't mine, either. Or New Jersey, though I do live there…
A/Ns: I read this quote in a friend's AIM profile – I think it's a bit of a poem he wrote – and nearly jumped out of my chair because it was so damn right for G/S: "Would you miss me cause I'm leaving? Would you hold me cause I'm lonely? Course you wouldn't, that's not your style, that's not how you like your profile to look, one look, that might be all it took."
Also, I know the existence of Sara's brother is in question, but it was handy for this story, so let's just assume he exists while you read this. JF's real-life brother is named Jeff, so I thought it'd be fun to use that name for him.
Oh, and I have no idea whether Sara's supposed to have a middle name, or what it is if she is. "Sara Ann" just goes together well in my mind, so I decided to use it. And besides, Jorja's middle name is Ann. But I didn't think of that till I finished this, I swear.
She threw another pile of clothing into the nearest box before wiping the sweat out of her eyes with the back of her hand. "Goddamn shit . . ." she muttered, following up with a stream of increasingly less sensible curses.
Another blouse. Shove it in. She didn't know why she was hurrying to begin with; it wasn't like anyone was coming to stop her. If anything was for sure in this situation, it was that. Somehow, though, she still felt the need to hurry. To get out of here before she could stop herself.
This sucked. She didn't need this. She didn't know why she did this to herself. That was the problem, of course - she did it to herself. No one persecuted her until she forced them into it. Grissom wouldn't have said, "No," so coldly if she hadn't cornered him.
She didn't need this. She didn't need him, she didn't need Las Vegas, and she didn't need all this junk she was packing. Maybe she should just leave most of it here and leave her landlord a check to cover its disposal. Standing up, she stopped moving for the first time in hours to survey the disaster area her bedroom had become. A neat metaphor for her life as a whole, she mused bitterly. Everything flung around willy-nilly, no sense and no plan.
She bent down again to jerk shoes and storage containers out from under the bed. The bed. The bed that she hadn't shared with anyone in recent memory. Certainly not with Grissom; he backed away from her if she even tried to touch his arm lately, let alone him coming anywhere near her bed. He no longer touched her, even incidentally. He used to be able to give her a quick hug if she needed it, or a pat on the back, but not anymore.
Despite all the times she'd visited his office, confusion and need plain on her face, he'd never moved an inch from his desk. "It's confusing," "Let's have dinner," "You wanna sleep with me?" Nothing made any difference – he never moved an inch closer. One step forward, two steps back. Same dance for the past four years.
He wouldn't miss her. Nick and Greg, sure. Maybe even Warrick and Catherine. Not Grissom, though, no way. That would ruin his image, and the man had a reputation to uphold.
Yeah, she thought with a snort, a reputation as a cold, bloodless boss who didn't know his staff were living, breathing creatures. Paging her while she was two hours away on her day off, with nary an apology in sight. Pulling her out of a continuing education seminar because he didn't want to call one of the CSIs he actually liked.
Yep, Grissom had a reputation to maintain. He didn't want to be seen as having any emotion, and so he forced anything he did feel under the surface. Every now and then she'd gotten the feeling that maybe he did feel something. Every now and then he'd slip up and say something that could almost be construed as friendly, or even affectionate. "Since I met you." "I need you." Just enough to get her hopes up before he started ignoring her again.
Bastard.
It had been the thought of "If I can just get him to look at me, really look at me," that had kept her here this long. But then the lab explosion came, and she tamped down her nerves and blurted it out. And he'd turned her down flat. Well no, not "flat." He'd told her he didn't know what to do about "this." "This" meaning, she supposed, that silly little infatuation she'd been carrying around and throwing in his way every now and then.
He didn't know what to do about it. Ok, fine. She did. She was leaving. No chance, no plan, no permanence. Gone. She wasn't even sure where to yet, but definitely gone. To her brother's house tomorrow. Then she'd worry about where else.
The phone rang and she involuntarily tensed, caught between the fear that it was him and the hope that it was him. "Hello?"
"Hey little girl! Are you really coming to see me?" Her brother, sounding disgustingly upbeat.
"Oh, Jeff – hey. I'm uh . . . well, how much room do you have in your house?"
"Huh?"
"Room. How much room, Jeff? I need to know how much of my stuff I can bring."
"Whoooa there, hold on Sar. You mean this isn't just a visit? You want to move in?"
"Not exactly. I just need to leave Vegas, and you're going to be my halfway house while I try to find something else."
"It's that older guy again, isn't it. I always told you it was an idiotic idea, Sara Ann, and you never listened to me, not once! You really should . . ."
Her phone beeped. "Hold on," she ordered tersely, glad to escape the lecture, and pushed the flash button. "Hello?"
"Sara?"
She almost dropped the phone. It was him. Why him, why now? "Yeah." No emotion, don't let it through, be as cold to him as he is to you.
"Um . . . hi." He sounded nervous. Good, that made two of them.
"Yeah," she said again.
"I, uh . . ." His voice dropped off. Oh no, this had been what he'd sounded like after she asked him to dinner. "Can we talk?"
"No. I'm on the phone with my brother."
"Oh. Um, Sara, I just wanted to know if you're okay. You've been a little distracted lately."
Waving a hand carelessly, as thought he could see it, she forced her tone to lighten. "Nah, I'm fine. Listen, Grissom, I really have to go. Jeff and I are, uh, making plans."
"Ok. But Sara . . ."
The sound of his voice tapered off as she pulled the phone from her ear and pressed flash again. "Jeff?"
"Yep."
"Sorry. Listen, please don't start with the lecture. This has nothing to do with anyone else and everything to do with me. So just answer the question – how much room do you have that I could claim?"
A loud sigh came through the wires as he expressed his disapproval. "You shouldn't run, sis, but if you're not going to listen about that, then I'll just have to do the same thing I've been doing for your entire life: take care of you. You can have as much room as you need; I'll make room if you need it. I have a lot of junk anyway."
She sniffed back the sensation of tears. "Thanks. Do you have the flight information I e-mailed you?"
"Yep. 4:25 tomorrow afternoon, LAS to EWR. I'll pick you up by the baggage claim."
She smiled into the phone. "From the frying pan into the fire, huh. Well, at least I'm pretty sure I can get a job in New York City by you. Ok, I have to go pack some more – you wouldn't believe how much clothing I own, for someone who always wears the same thing."
"'Kay, hon. I'll see you tomorrow. Bye."
"Bye."
Click. She sighed. Jeff was going to start asking questions as soon as he got her in the car tomorrow, and she supposed she'd tell him the truth. It wasn't all about Grissom, anyway – part of it was that she really didn't like Las Vegas to begin with. Really. The heat sucked and she hated tourists. Not that New York was exactly tourist-free, but it had fewer of them roaming the streets at any given moment, at least.
She wandered back to the bedroom, still lost in thought about what she would tell her brother. Oh, well. More packing. Picking up a pile of books, she threw them one-by-one into another box that was labeled "Go." Hmm, it was quiet in here. Too quiet. Time to turn on the mp3s.
She was singing along with Puddle of Mud when a thumping interrupted her chorus of, "She fuckin' hates me." Ugh, she hated when the upstairs neighbors started up with that banging. Turning the speakers down, she discovered that it wasn't the thumping she was used to hearing when the neighbors got it on. No, this thumping was coming from the front door.
She huffed her way to the front of the apartment. If this was the pizza boy knocking on the wrong door again, she was really going to go nuts on him this time. Maybe she'd lift the pizza, then send him running. She pulled the door open two inches, frown already on her face.
"Hi."
She blinked. "Grissom, what are you doing here?"
"I brought you pizza. You sounded stressed."
Leaning the side of her face against the edge of the door, she made no move to remove the chain. "When am I ever not stressed, Gris? Now tell me the truth. Why are you here?"
A sheepish look crossed his face. "Honest to god, Sara, I'm here because you sounded . . . off. And I got worried. So I brought you food. Hey, free dinner at the very least, right?"
She didn't smile. "I'm not eating any food you bought me."
"Uh . . . why not? You eat food I pay for all the time at work when I cover lunch."
"This is different. This isn't work. I'm not cool with you paying for my dinner."
Grissom smiled. "Well there goes my idea for a date . . ."
The door slammed in his face before he even finished the sentence, and he waited for the sound of the chain being removed. After twenty seconds of silence, he ventured, "Sara?"
"Go away," she said without opening the door. "You're not funny and I'm not eating your pizza."
"Well . . . will you eat something else if I bring it?"
"No! Go the hell away, Grissom!"
He shook his head at the door. "No can do. I'm not leaving until I know you're ok."
The door opened again, this time with no chain. "I'm fine, ok? There, I've said it twice now, are you happy? You know what, don't answer that, because you'll never get me to believe you actually give a shit."
Grissom was struck dumb. He'd come here determined to check on her, but he hadn't been prepared for her anger. The resolution was draining out of him now and he made one last attempt. "I care," he asserted indignantly. "I care about all my CSIs."
Wrong thing to say, apparently, as Sara's glare deepened and she made to close the door again. Desperately, he stuck out a hand to push against the wood. "How about if I leave the pizza, ok? I'll put it down out here and when you hear that I'm gone, you can come out and pick it up."
She wasn't going to be able to get rid of him any other way, Sara realized. "Ok, fine. Give it." She stuck out a hand for the box and pulled the pizza inside.
As Sara moved to close the door for the last time, he put his hand on her wrist gently. "Hey, uh, Sara. Call me if you want to talk, ok? Really."
She gave him a skeptical look. "Yeah. Right. I'll call you. Bye." The door closed and she snapped the chain back into place.