Disclaimer: I was going to wait. It's late. But Jorja's statement on Twitter had me spinning out with all manner of feelings, and I had to pour them somewhere, so here we are. Jorja, thank you for giving us 21 years of pure brilliance, in Sara Sidle and the heart with which you played her. I can't put it into words. If I had them, I'd surely make them immortal. I'd make it so we never have to lose the ones we love - pets, lovers, favourite fictional characters - to the ever impermanence and beauty and horror of ceaseless change.

But we do.

And I don't.

And this is all I can offer, as comfort.

Rating: M.

Trigger/Content Warning: Sex, grief. The usual.

Author's Note: Struggling with words. Thank you, I love you, I hope you can lend me some of yours.

xoxo BB

Baby Teeth

Chapter 48

She was walking away from him.

He couldn't see her face, and she must have at least been a few hundred yards - but he knew it was her. He knew her. He knew the feeling of anxiety in his heart.

The desert mirage threatened to swallow her, making her silhouette hazy on the horizon.

SARA, he opened his mouth to bellow at her. A faint, silent croak was all his throat rewarded him with. SARA. COME BACK.

His legs felt like cement - they wouldn't move. SARA.

He just stood, mouth opening and closing, as the harsh sunlight lit the unforgiving desert and the horizon - the jagged teeth of rocks - bore down on him.

SARA.

She just kept walking, and he couldn't catch up.

Gil Grissom was soaked in sweat as he jolted awake, the soft light of their bedroom greeting him. Beside him, Sara was fast asleep, and he turned onto his side with great care to avoid waking her up. She was normally a light sleeper - but they had had an intense few days. It didn't surprise him that she needed rest. He was grateful, by some small blessing, that his nightmare hadn't interrupted her... that she seemed to be sleeping without nightmares of her own.

He had risked it, risked it all, for Heather. Stupidly. Thoughtlessly. And still, Sara forgave him; she let him back into her heart. Even showed him the courage of how much it hurt her. She hadn't run back to him hurt and needy. She had shown him the full force of the damage he had done and shown him what to do to remedy it.

It was then that he realised they would survive this. They would survive anything... they would survive him.

His heart didn't know what all to do with that. Where to put it. What to do with it... I think my ideas about marriage are changing.

He already knew he had found the soul he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He was willing to wait until she was ready, no matter how long that took. All that meant was choosing his timing.

Unfortunately, he'd already proven he wasn't great at that.

Ignoring the doubt gnawing at the edges of his insides, he turned back to her. She was so still, so relaxed in sleep. Her dark brown hair spilled over the side of her head onto the pillow beneath her. Hand tucked under the pillow, her right hand resting on top of the covers.

He thought back to the kitchen, the day before, and the heady rush of lust from how he had taken her against the bench. It wasn't that he didn't love making love to her, or how they played together. It was that she was strong enough to give as good as she got, as he gave, when they both needed release into and of each other. It made him almost hard, just remembering the tone of her scream as she came after him. He could delight in her pleasure and all the ways it presented itself with him, from him, between them forever.

Forever.

The troublesome feeling in his heart leftover from his nightmare - the same nightmare he had endured while on the East Coast, so many months ago - began to fade as he moved closer to her, reaching out to stroke his hand down the side of her body. Sara stirred, back arching in a waking stretch, and her butt landed square in the crook of his hips. She froze, turning her head over her shoulder to regard him with a tired smile. "G'morning," she mumbled.

"Morning," he murmured, hand shifting the covers off their bodies, revealing her nakedness and his. Waiting for the imperceptible nod, the tiny smile, the opening of her shoulders that told him yes, you may enter, he finally leaned down and engulfed her mouth with his. Tongue searching, probing, as he skimmed his hand across her belly and gripped her other hip, turning her towards him.

Sara moaned into his mouth as he stroked her thigh, then the other, before dipping in and brushing his fingers through her folds to rub her clitoris. Slowly, carefully, feeling for any pain or soreness or tension in her body as she opened like a flower under his touch and his mouth. Coming up for air, he moved down to lick, suck at one nipple, then the other. She stretched, and he felt it through his fingers, as he sunk two inside her and out again.

"Hmm, yes," she whispered, stretching her back and then curling forward, as he kissed back up her neck and her jawline. He didn't need to watch her to make sure he was touching her in the ways she most needed him to anymore. He felt how her legs opened and her muscles relaxed and twitched around his fingers, how her wetness gathered as he slid his fingers in and out of her, how she sighed and whimpered when he applied pressure to the places her body most rewarded. He could play her like an instrument now, and it was music to every part of him.

Gil was kissing her as she climaxed the first time, his fingers flattened against her centre as he gently caressed her down from the high. He lifted his head back to look her in the eye, curling his body around her and shifting her leg so she could feel him pressing at her. "You okay?" he whispered.

She just smiled and nodded, and reached up to touch his shoulder where it met the base of his neck. How the lightest of her touches could tell him she was there, with him, in every way. "I love you," he whispered. He leaned down to kiss her before she could reply, swallowing the sigh of pleasure as he moved inside her. He felt her legs lift at his sides, curling around his body and clutching him to her as he moved. He pulled back to watch her, one hand gripping the side of her rib, thumb pressing into her breast.

Grissom was sure he would always have the vision of her looking up at him, brown eyes dark and deep with desire, a tiny smile on her face... lips parted. He crushed his hips into her, grinding against her clitoris as he moved, diving deep into the pleasure of how she responded to him. The hand on his shoulder gripped him, lips drawing wider.

They both came quietly, as though this morning - this particular morning, their morning, the rest of the world's afternoon - was sacred. For Gil, it was.

Laying back on his side next to her, sticky and sated, he stayed his hand between her legs to stroke at the wetness remaining there. Lightly, tenderly, and she didn't seem to mind. Sara was more awake, now, and looking up at him intently - only sometimes sliding her eyes closed to enjoy the feeling of how he touched her, caring for her both before and after they joined.

Reluctantly, he pulled his hand away from her, resting fingers slicked with her on the skin of her hip. He watched her, gazing up at him before looking away slightly, eyes shifting up and over his shoulder.

"What's on your mind?" he asked her, softly.

"Oh..." she sighed, still looking over his shoulder, absently. "Greg."

He must have looked horrified, because she looked straight at him and smirked, wickedly. "Greg?"

"He's had a rough year," she explained, innocently.

"Yes, he has," Gil retorted, nearly rolling his eyes. "But... Greg? Now?"

"Oh, shush," she joked, leaned up to kiss him lightly, pressing her naked body fully against his again. "Among other things."

"Hmm," he murmured in agreement. "Poor Greg," he added, in between kisses, his tone positively insincere.

Sara pushed him back on the bed, holding herself up over him. "Don't be mean," she scolded him, gently. "I know you care."

He nodded, conceding her point. He did. I just care on completely different scales. I care about the team, and I would be devastated if anything happened to them. But you... he must have been lost in his thoughts, in his memory of the nightmare, because when he rejoined her gaze she was frowning at him, puzzled.

"What's on your mind?" she asked, concerned.

Gil shook his head. "Greg."

She rolled her eyes and smiled as she pushed herself off him, off the bed. Unashamedly naked, she wandered into the ensuite bathroom and turned on the light. He watched from the bed, admiring how he could still see all of her even framed against the cracks of light shining through from beyond her silhouette. Best let her shower alone, this morning.

They readied for work, slowly. He brewed a pot of coffee while she showered, bringing their mugs to the bedroom and leaving them on his dresser as he made the bed. Sara emerged, scrubbed clean, wet hair curling around her neck and shoulders and a towel wrapped around her body. She reached for one of the mugs and threw him a grateful smile as she sniffed it, carrying it over to her dressed.

I could do this every morning, forever, he thought.

Forever.

Panicked that his heart might be too loud to contain, and he might say something without precedent, Grissom excused himself for the bathroom to shower and dress himself. He returned to find her drinking the last of her coffee, jewellery drawer open and the black velvet box on the top. Without a word, he walked over to her, still towelling his hair dry.

"Baby teeth, huh?" she said, holding the necklace out for him to take.

"Mmhmm," he murmured, quietly, as she handed it to him and then moved her hands to gather her dried hair from her shoulders and lift it so he could clasp the necklace in place. He kissed her on the back of the neck where the clasp rested, then turned her toward him. Forever.

You really need to figure out your timing.

I took away the only person she ever loved, so she's going to do the same thing to me.

Catherine found him in his office after the interrogation, after they had processed the car. Sara had been missing for hours - the menacing rain had been hammering down on them, a peal of cruel laughter on the tin shell of the lab, reminding them of the ticking time bomb counting down to losing their beloved team member. Still, Catherine wasn't going to let herself wallow in self-pity or worry. She'd learned the hard way with Lindsay, that it did nothing to bring them back. She had to be there for Gil, and she would. He had been there for her.

Sara had been there for her, too.

The lights were off - she almost walked straight past, assuming he was elsewhere - when she finally made out the shape of him, hunched over his desk. She knocked and entered without waiting for his answer, approaching him much like a cornered animal. She wondered if he was nearing migraine territory.

She wondered if she was nearing migraine territory, and she didn't get them.

"Gil?" she asked, gently. His head whipped up to her and it seemed to take him a split second to figure out who she was.

"Oh, Catherine," he grunted, and then lowered his head to the desk.

"You need to go home, Gil," she said. She was talking to him like she would talk to her own daughter - softly, but firmly. "Even just to have a shower, change of clothes, nap. You're running on empty. Sar-... she needs you to be present, to be well enough to find her."

Grissom glared at her, and she knew it was because she was making sense. He just nodded, sitting back in his chair.

"C'mon," she said, holding out her keys. "I'll take you home, bring you back."

He followed her out of his office, without argument. Holy shit. He's in a bad way.

The drive to his apartment was silent at first. Catherine had at least a hundred questions, but none of them were for his benefit - only her curiosity, and he deserved more from her right now. How had she not known? Where had her head been at? How long had they...? She shook her head, slightly, staring out of the windscreen, wipers frantically working to keep it clear. The rhythmic swish, click punctuated the silence between them nicely.

"We've been together almost two years," he muttered, as though reading her mind. Catherine glanced over at him, trying to keep her eyes from widening, her mouth opening in surprise. Two... years!? Hell, she knew he had a soft spot for her. And if there was a member of their team who didn't know that Sara was prone to puppy-dog eyes where Grissom was concerned, they were better to hand in their forensic certs as soon as they could. But two years? Without any of them... without her, knowing.

Suddenly, she was thinking back to what Brass had said at Old West Town.

I know something a lot more juicier than Grissom and Lady Heather, he'd started to say. Oh, that asshole was going to get it in the ear if he'd kept that from them for that long.

That was... if Sara survived. She took one last look at her friend and then turned her eyes to the road again, the feeling of dread trickling through her as though the rain was leaking through the windshield and chilling her to the bone.

Catherine pulled up outside Gil's apartment... come to think of it, she hadn't visited him in more than two years. What kind of friend am I? Catherine marched around the car and held her hand out to Grissom for him to give her his house key. Slowly, zombie-like, he reached into his pocket and withdrew his keys, following her as she opened the door and ushered him inside.

It looked, felt, and smelled different to the last time she'd been there. Oh, there was definitely a woman living here. She didn't know enough about Sara to know her taste, but she knew the feeling of feminine energy in a living space, and this reeked of it. As she followed Gil into the apartment, she could see it - in the books on surfaces, in the empty coffee mug near to the entryway sideboard. No, not just a woman. Sara Sidle lives here.

Lived.

Oh, god.

She shook the thought from her body, watching her friend as he seemed to falter on where to go, what to do.

"Shower first," Catherine suggested. He didn't turn to her, but nodded, moving in the direction of their bedroom. Catherine took one last roving glance around the living space - that peace lily wasn't there before, neither was the vegetarian recipe book on the bar, or the sculpture art on the bookshelves - before following him and settling in the doorway to his... their bedroom. She leaned against the doorframe, knowing she could not step inside. Gil was standing, frozen, at a set of dresser drawers. On top of the drawers was a jewellery tree, a range of cast iron branches, strung heavy with all manner of necklaces. Gil had his hand hovering above one that, instead of hanging from the tree, rested on the edge of the dresser.

It was beautiful. Bright, pure gold, with small teardrop - almost petal - shaped links dropping down between hollow joins.

Grissom seemed almost afraid to touch it, his face pale and stricken.

"What is it, Gil?"

"I think I need to be alone," he managed. His voice was low, and there was something dangerous in it. She could hear the emotion with which his body almost vibrated at high frequency; she could feel it rolling off him in waves. Desperation.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Gil. I'll wait outside, but I'm staying."

He didn't answer, he didn't argue. She tried not to notice the shake in his hand as she backed out of the room and closed the door.

He was sure he was in the belly of some kind of machinery, shaking him until he came apart at the seams. Sara's gold necklace, on the edge of her dresser. When had she taken it off? When had she come home? She must have changed her clothes. He knew she had gone to that vegetarian restaurant she liked on her way back to the lab... maybe she'd dropped home then. Maybe she hadn't wanted to lose it when they executed the search warrants. Maybe...

It didn't matter. None of it matters. She's gone, because of you.

The anger crashed over him, a tsunami of grief and fury, and before he could control himself he had reached out and grabbed the dresser, turning it on its side. It crashed to the floor, Sara's necklaces spilling from the jewellery tree. Her clothing, underwear, falling out of open drawers onto the carpet. Anger released, the tears came then - deep, wrenching sobs as he sank to his knees where he'd stood, where the dresser once stood, where she had stood... before everything. Just hours ago.

You really need to figure out your timing.

He remembered their conversation as they lay in bed together, him cradling her in her pain after she'd had the IUD placed.

"The way he talked about her like she was still in the room... it was comforting, thinking she could live on in his spoken memories of her."

"Sara," he sobbed, crouching over on the floor, holding his head in his hands. Was that it? He couldn't comprehend the despair. He couldn't understand how they would find a way out of this. Sara, his Sara, was gone... because of you.

He cried for what felt like forever, before the shining glint of light caught his eye. The gold necklace, shining from beneath layers of her clothing, stark bright gold against the dark carpet. With a shaking hand he reached for it, crawling forward on his knees. He almost passed out as he caught her scent, their laundry detergent, on her clothing. It made him ache in a way that felt like a hole was opening up in his chest, and all of himself was being sucked into it.

He picked up the necklace, delicate, terrified of its fragility.

He held the gold links between his trembling hands.

And in the quiet of their bedroom, the calm in the eye of the storm, threading the links through his fingers like one of his mother's rosaries... for the first time in years, Gil Grissom began to pray.

END OF SEASON 7.