Disclaimer: Can I be real with all you beautiful souls for a second? Look, we all know I don't own this *gestures at all of it*. And, unless you're CBS or any of the incredible humans (JORJA FOX, EVERYBODY) who portray these characters (and thereby, while not in terms of tangible intellectual property law, but certainly in proximity have a certain right to their possession too) - you don't own them either. So can we, like, just love on them, and love on each other, and perhaps not act like we are any more or less entitled to them?
I'm just happy to be here. And happy you're here with me, and us, too. Let's share our not-ownershipness and adoration of this space and the characters and people who created it by just being good to each other yeah.
Is that cool?
I hope so.
Rating: T+. Still mature themes, but no sexy-times (yet).
Trigger/Content Warning: This chapter runs the gamut of discussing some sensitive topics, particularly mental illness and psychiatric disorders, as well as pharmaceutical interventions thereof (I will amend the warning and add this to the previous chapter, as well). I don't pretend to be a psychiatrist so please first accept my apologies if you find anything that contradicts what you know to be true, either through experience or expertise - I know that the University of Google is not enough to preempt or prevent these errors. It's heavy. There's also a brief mention of suicidal ideation.
I have been prescribed Seroquel before after a very traumatic incident, but that was not in the United States. It got me through. I will also share without shame that I take daily medication for my brain. There's no shame in needing medication, particularly for your brain when it's having unhappy times, so please do not read into Sara's reaction here as being indicative of any stigma I want to exist.
Come as you are. You are safe and welcome here.
Author's Note: Thanks Puhik and Tessafox for reminding me - I meant to dedicate the last chapter (You're right Puhik, wow, 50!) to Mauricia, whose words still have me profoundly moved and awed. Mauricia, you are courage personified and your words are poetry, and I'd only be half of the writer I am without you and this incredible group of sisters (sorry again if you do not identify as female, again, you're still welcome here! I just don't have a better word for the warmth and sisterhood I feel in this community) holding me up and showing up for themselves and each other. Your courage blazed the trail for that, as did Ashleigh's, and Tessa's, and Van's, and so many others. I don't know how to properly thank you all for your kindness and generosity with me. But I'm sure gonna try to with keeping this story alive and as fierce as the fire you've brought to this hearth.
Holy. The power of women working in community is a terrifyingly beautiful thing.
Also, thanks again to Ashleigh who has been dealing with mushy-me and helping me string my braincells together even in the midst of her own grief. 2022, man! I don't believe in tarnishing whole entire years (which are also just weird figments of the imaginations of Gregorian monks anyhow, right? an arbitrary compartmentalization of time) with 'omens' or assumptions, but the last few weeks have NOT pulled their punches. Here's to happier days to come for all of us, and for the happier days (if you have them) to continue and become brighter and bolder than you imagined they could.
If you need it, let me lift you up if I can. I can't promise you canned comedy content or cookie-cutter comfort, but my heart is here and open, and listening. xoxo BB
Baby Teeth
Chapter 51
Grissom hovered behind his partner as she walked lamb-legged to their front door. He knew his hovering agitated her, but he couldn't help it - he was on high alert around her, ever since they'd found her under that dead tree in the desert. He unlocked the door and ushered her in, and she walked slowly, deliberately, using her right hand to lean against the wall as she removed her shoes.
"Here-" he nearly bent down to help her, but she waved him off.
"Griss, stop," she scolded him, but smiled weakly to take the edge off. "It's okay. I'm not going to break." Yet.
He watched as she wandered into the apartment, slowly looking from surface to surface. It had only been a few days, but he knew that look. She was looking at something she never thought she'd see again. He knew that look, because he had watched her carefully with it for almost every minute he'd spent in her company - both waking, and sleeping - since they found her.
When she'd finally found the courage to look at him, she looked at him with that same seeking gaze.
So he let her wander, and he watched her as he did so. She hadn't spoken to him about her session with Caroline, yet. He knew there were dark shadows in her mind where she frequently receded, sometimes in the middle of a conversation, sometimes when she didn't think he was watching her.
But, she was alive. And they had walked through darkness, together, before.
He followed her into their bedroom, feeling a small cringe of shame as she made a beeline for her dresser. He had righted it, of course, since the night Catherine had brought him home and he'd found the golden necklace on the edge of it - he had returned her clothing, carefully, to their rightful drawers. But, not knowing where to begin with her necklaces, he had left them in a pile on top of the dresser next to the jewellery tree. The gold necklace he had returned to the black box, hiding it in the drawer, unable to look at it until it was safely around her neck, and she was safely at home.
He couldn't abide by the magnitude of the loss otherwise.
She looked back over her shoulder at him, puzzling, but didn't ask. She was more taciturn since she returned from the hospital, more subdued. He knew part of it was the painkillers. She wandered around the room, finally settling on the end of the bed.
"I'm tired," she said, simply. She sounded exhausted, hollow.
It was still the middle of the day. He'd taken leave so he could be with her for the first few days - he didn't think his nerves could take it otherwise, and she needed to rest. "Why don't you take a nap? I'll put something together for you to eat when you wake up," he said. She nodded, reaching to peel off the track pants he'd brought her to wear. She slid under the covers onto her good side, with her back to him, and curled up in a ball.
Grissom wandered out to the mezzanine, picking up the bag he had left on the table in the hallway with her prescriptions. The doctors and Caroline had prescribed her both painkillers and neuropharmaceuticals, sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medications for the first few weeks. They had asked him if she had been a suicide risk before, and he shook his head, while remembering their conversation about her attempt when she was 14. That isn't her, now, though. He thought, dismissively. Is it?
When he'd picked her up from the hospital, discharge papers clutched in her hand, dazed expression on her face, Caroline had beckoned him closer. "Right, bucko," she'd said. "She's not going to be herself for a while. It's not your job to try to get her back there. You just have to wait and see who she is, right now. Capiche?"
He'd nodded, suddenly terrified. Caroline reminded him a little of his own mother.
A mouthier, gaudier version of his mother.
He brewed tea - chamomile - and removed the medications from the bag. Zolpidem, Tramadol… Seroquel. Seroquel? He made a note to look it up. He could ask Sara about it, but he wasn't sure what kind of mood she would be in to talk. He wondered how much she'd talked with Caroline.
Grissom made her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for when she woke up, then picked up a book to read and carried the supplies up to their bedroom on a tray, setting it on her dresser. As quietly as he could, he shifted the armchair from the living area through to the corner of their room and settled himself in it. He made himself comfortable with his book, contented with biding his time until she woke.
When Sara woke it was past dark. Soft lamplight from behind her cast long shadows across the room, and she turned, rolling over onto her back so she could look to where the light came from. Gil was sat in an armchair - their armchair, from the living area next to the sofa - in the corner of the room, on the other side of her bedside table. He looked up from the book he was reading, open in his lap, at the sight of her movement.
"Hey," he greeted her.
"Hey," she said, shifting so she could sit up in bed.
"You hungry?" Gil asked, folding the corner of the page he was on and closing the book, setting it aside as he stood and walked over to her dresser.
"I could eat," Sara shrugged. She wasn't particularly hungry - strangely, she hadn't been since the desert… but she felt like eating something. She needed to get the gritty taste of the sand and dust and the metallic taste of her own blood out of her mouth. It had been days, and she had brushed and washed out her mouth so many times since, but the taste lingered. The feeling of dryness, of panic, lingered. Grissom sat on the edge of their bed, next to her knees and offered her a plate with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
"Thanks," she said, and reached for a slice. As she took a bite, Grissom took a breath.
"Sara, there's something I wanted to ask you about," he said, and Sara paused mid-chew, waiting for him to continue. "At the hospital. They, -your next of kin - when did you-"
"When did I list you as my next of kin?" She said. She'd meant to tell him about it, all these years. She shrugged. "When I arrived in Vegas."
"Oh," he said, simply, as though it made sense. She looked at him, sandwich halfway between the plate and her mouth, expression on her face as if to say, what, you think I have anyone else I could put down?
He fell silent, and looked away. She put the sandwich down, her stomach protesting after only a few bites. Grissom had stood up and retrieved the bag from the hospital pharmacy when they'd picked up the prescriptions her doctors had discharged her with, then returned to the bed.
"Uh, h-how would you feel about walking me through these? So I can- I don't know, so I know what you need, if you need it," he suggested, awkwardly. Sara swallowed, and smiled, touched by his thoughtfulness. She held out her hand for the bag, and offered him the plate as a swap. She pulled the tramadol out and held it up.
"For pain," she said, and then reached into the bag and pulled out the zolpidem. "For sleep."
Then she put them both in the bag. Not the last one. She felt sick.
"…And, the last one?" Gil asked, gently.
"I need a shower," Sara declared, and smiled at him, before throwing the covers off her knees and getting up from the bed. She walked into the bathroom and closed the door.
"Uh, honey, remember about your cast-" Grissom called through the door. His only response was the clattering of bottles around the bathtub, then the sound of the central faucet. He relaxed a little. She was running a bath, at least.
There was a crash, as though she had just walked into the counter, and he heard her swear. Stifling a small chuckle, he knocked on the door. "Sara, I can help-"
"Fine," she retorted. He opened the door to see her sitting, face a little flushed, on the edge of the tub. She had clearly tried to remove her t-shirt and had found it caught on her cast - she was hastily re-dressed, her hair mussed, and looking at him with a thoroughly cantankerous expression. "Don't you dare." She warned him, and he forced the muscles in his face to straighten out in a frown, fighting his urge to smile.
It was a relief to see her pissed. He wondered if her fire had gone out - it hadn't.
"C'mere," he said, kneeling down beside her.
"Eyes to yourself," she warned him. He returned an innocent, who, me? Look as he gently reached for the edge of her t-shirt, holding her gaze as he pulled it up and helped her pull her good arm out of the sleeve to her side. He tried not to remember how he'd helped guide her elbow onto the stretcher as they'd rushed her to the chopper. No radial pulse. It was suddenly not so difficult to keep from smiling.
He helped her pull the neck of the tee over her head, standing to shift around her as he rolled the t-shirt sleeve over her cast, slowly, to avoid tugging at her shoulder. She watched him, still a little flushed, quietly lost in thought.
"They gave it to my mom," she said, eyes still unfocused, as he stood and shook the tee out to throw in the laundry hamper. Grissom paused in his movements to listen to her. "Seroquel." Sara added, looking up, but not quite looking up at him.
She looked back down at the floor. She was running her hand over the lines of the cast, picking at the edges where her fingers poked out. Gil moved to sit on the toilet, lid closed, leaning forward onto his knees to listen to her. He was amazed at how she could be sitting there, only in her underwear, and still look like she was decked out in chainmail - a full suit of armour.
All the edges that had softened and rounded in their relationship, were back - thorny, sharp.
Gil waited. Just as he'd waited, quietly, calmly, in her apartment - years ago. "It's an anti-psychotic," she continued. "They said it might help, with the nightmares."
She looked up and forward, still refusing to look at him, but he could see his cue. "Okay," he said, taking extra care to keep his voice level. "That sounds like good care management."
Sara nodded, but he could see she wasn't convinced. "What are you worried about, Sara?"
She shook her head and bit her lip. The bath was nearly full - he reached round the shower shield and turned it off, shaking the moisture off with his hands and picking up a towel to dry them with, settling back on the toilet. Sara hugged herself, cast awkwardly held against her midsection, good hand holding it at the elbow. She turned slightly so she could look into the water, reaching out to dip her fingers just below the surface, tracing shapes in the surface tension.
Grissom took her silence as a moment to help her, standing to move closer to her and help her stand. She complied, looking away as he helped her remove her underwear and bra, avoiding his gaze from her to keep her dignity. He was gentle, and he knew she was too tired to fight him on it. This was just going to be her for a while, and he wanted to make that as easy as possible. When she was naked, except for the cast, he hooked his arm under her good shoulder as she stepped cautiously into the bath and then crouched down, eventually settling with her cast resting on the other edge. Sara hugged her knees, folding her right arm over the top of them, leaning her chin on the inside of her arm.
"I saw him out there," she whispered, staring into the water. She blinked. "My father."
Gil nodded. "You hallucinated," he confirmed, gently. It didn't surprise him - she had been out there in the blazing heat, no food, no water, delirious and in pain.
Sara looked up at him, her expression haunted. "Honey, what is it?"
"My mom saw things, too. And heard things. And… believed things, that weren't true."
Grissom sighed, settling where he sat at the edge of the tub. "You're worried you inherited her condition." Schizophrenia.
Her face crumpled then, but her tears were silent, sliding in fast-moving rivulets down her face and across her burns and cuts. She nodded. "Oh, Sara," Gil stripped off his shirt and then reached into the water to hold her hand, the other hand steadying her back. He leaned his forehead against the side of hers.
"He was so real," she whispered, shaking as she cried.
"I know," he murmured. "Hallucinations are, particularly when your body and mind is under that kind of stress."
He ran his hand up and down her back, sloshing water above the line to keep her upper back warm, then reaching up to gently massage her shoulders. "Gil, what if- what if this was a trigger," she said, fearfully. Her voice was nasally and high-pitched. "What if-"
"Shh," he hushed her, hearing her panic. He squeezed her hand and freed the hand at her back, sitting back so he could look at her directly. Sara shook her head.
"What if you are schizophrenic?" he asked, bluntly. Sara looked up at him then, stony faced, eyes wide and fearful. Slowly, she nodded. Gil smiled, gently. "Then we figure that out, together."
Then we figure that out together.
It sounded so simple. She wanted to believe it was so simple. She couldn't respond, so she just started crying again. She felt his arms around her, reaching for her from beside the tub. The water was doing something to her, warm and wet and coccooning, and it felt a little easier to be vulnerable for a moment. Gil held her until she needed to pull away again.
She couldn't tell him about the memories, the horrors that she had faced out there - memories she had faced with her father watching. The fights, the yelling, the trips to the hospital. She couldn't bear the idea of that becoming them.
She couldn't bear the idea of her becoming her.
Still, it was a beautiful lie to live with; the idea that they could be different.
Whether it was the water, or the sudden relief of unburdening herself of one of the heavy terrors weighing down her heart, Sara suddenly felt sleepy - as though she could sink down and sleep for an age. Gil helped her wash, draining the tub before helping her out and wrapping her in a large bath towel. He wrapped it around her body with his arms, holding her to him for a moment, and she sank into his warmth.
Maybe they would be different.
The following few days passed in a blur. Between sleeping, bathing, and occasionally eating, Sara mostly just stayed medicated and slept. He worried she was sinking into depression. While she accepted his help - with undressing, with bathing, with preparing meals - she seemed deadened somehow. With his support, she had taken the Seroquel prescribed to her for the first few days, and slept soundly.
Grissom was another story. He frequently woke during the night, reaching for her, checking she was beside him. He tried not to touch her, scared of waking her from her peaceful slumber, but he had to check - he had to know she was there. It was the only thing that steadied his racing heart, his seizing lungs. She's okay.
The relief that flooded him then, in those moments after waking when his brain caught up to his body. But each time, it was like waking into that nightmare. Waking into that feeling of despair he'd felt, the exact moment his entire soul had cracked in two, kneeling on the floor of their bedroom.
He was on call on his first shift back, so stayed with her, fully clothed, phone on the bedside table. Sara woke in the early hours, where he had been halfway between sleeping and waking through most of the night.
"I have to give my statement," she said out of nowhere, and he turned, startled. In the dark, he narrowed his eyes, trying to make out the shape of her face in borrowed streetlight seeping through the sides of the blinds. "To Ecklie. About us. Tonight."
"Oh," he turned back onto his back, reaching for her hand with his left. He gave it a squeeze. "You gonna be okay?"
"It's Ecklie," she said. "I can handle it."
"I know," he smiled, turning on his side and bringing her hand to his lips. "I know you can."
He watched her for a moment. He still found himself dumbstruck, breathless, just simply observing her - lying next to him, alive. Even looking like she had fought her way through the valley of death - as she had, in fact - she was heart-wrenchingly beautiful. Gil found his voice, barely, to declare, "I'll take you in, if you like."
She just nodded. "Thanks."
He dropped her in at the underground parking lot, glancing warily around, ducking slightly in his seat. "Gil, Ecklie may be a lot of things, but he doesn't hide behind cars waiting to jump out at you," Sara joked, drily.
Gil looked at her sideways. "I wouldn't put it past him. He's been calling me for a few days now."
"Hmm," she unbuckled her seatbelt and placed her hand on the door handle, but didn't make to pull it.
"Are you sure you're gonna be okay?" he asked, for getting his paranoia and sitting up to look at her.
"I'll be fine."
"Would you like me to come in with you?"
Sara gave him a pointed look. "I don't think any of us need or would benefit from that," she said, and then looked down at her lap, withdrawing her hand from the door handle and resting it there.
"Hey," he reached across the centre console, gently squeezing her fingers. "You haven't done anything wrong."
She looked up at him then and rolled her eyes. "We literally violated a lab policy, Gil," she half-smiled, half-deadpanned. "The fact that I have to give a statement to Ecklie is proof enough that I did do something wrong."
Gil looked hurt, but he didn't let go of her hand. "Do you regret it?"
Sara smiled, then, and he saw a fraction of her natural warmth coming through. It brought him hope. "Not for a second," she said, and heard the certainty in her voice.
"Okay," he said, giving her hand one final squeeze before letting her go. "Give him hell."
The sun was low in the sky, the following evening, when Grissom picked Sara up from the hospital. He had solved the case of the headless Go-Kartsman, and she had her follow-up trauma appointment with Caroline. She'd asked if he'd be willing to join her for the last part of the session - at Caroline's request - and it was not without a hint of trepidation that he agreed. There was no doubt that he would walk through fire for her, but that was not to say that the older woman didn't put the fear of God in him.
As had his mother, he supposed, in more ways than one.
The Sara he found in Caroline's practice seemed markedly different from the one he had dropped off to the lab earlier that day. Her smile seemed more… Sara, whether it was the teeth or the warmth of it.
"Come in, come in," Caroline ushered him, impatiently. Sara's smiled quickly turned into a smirk, and she watched as he awkwardly took a seat next to her where she was sitting on a wide, old couch. As soon as he was sat, Caroline barrelled on, "So, Sara here thinks she's ready to be discharged from trauma support."
Gil raised his eyebrows and looked from Caroline to Sara, surprised. "Uh-"
"Yes, yes, I'm sure you have opinions," she waved him off, and then muttered under her breath, "They always do." She picked up a clipboard from the table next to her chair, and plucked a pair of reading glasses from where they rested on her chest, hung by brightly coloured plastic beads. She scanned the page before placing it back down, regarding them both over the top of her glasses.
"I disagree," she said, plainly. "But. I'm also not the person who needs to make the decision." Caroline then looked directly at Sara, and sighed. "That's all on you, kid."
Sara nodded, a small smile on her face. She's in control, here. Gil watched her, trying to figure her out. It felt like his Sara-radar was off… like he was zigging, and she zagged. He couldn't tell where her heart or head was at, and that alarmed him.
Trust her, he thought. She's given you no reason not to.
"I'm okay," she said. What Gil couldn't figure out was how her smile was genuine, when she was clearly lying. She was still grieving. He could feel it radiating off her… Sara looked to him and repeated herself. "I'm okay."
"Okay," he said, and reached out and took her hand.
Caroline simply nodded. "There's no point in me forcing you to come to these sessions if you're not ready, or willing, to engage with them," she shrugged. "I am confident you are at least safe, and that you have a good support system around you." She looked him dead in the eye. Gil nodded, feeling compelled somehow to prove he was listening, that he understood the gravity of both of their faith in him.
Even if he didn't really understand where it came from.
Caroline picked up the clipboard again, reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, and referenced a second page of notes. "So, in that case. Sara, you mentioned you were concerned about dissociative episodes you've had before. Gilbert," she said, and he sat up a bit straighter for being called that. "You're aware of these?"
He looked back to Sara, unsure how much she had told Caroline and how much he could divulge. "Y-yes," he nodded, watching her, as she looked down at her lap where his hand rested in hers. "What about them?"
Caroline just looked at Sara, who eventually cleared her throat. "Um, we discussed ways to, uh, get through them," she managed, watching Caroline closely for her response. It felt like everyone was looking at everyone else. "Caroline suggested… uh, counting backwards… or using some, uh, key words-"
Sara looked at him, almost pleading for him to take the lead. He nodded. "Sure, I can help you do that."
They shared a moment of simply searching the other out, Grissom trying to convey his steadiest acceptance and reassurance as Sara watched him for any sign he might bolt. They looked back at Caroline at the same time, and she rewarded them with a wary expression. "This is not going to be easy," she said, more to Sara than he. "I'm going to leave your case open for referral for the next three months, in case you need to come back. Capiche?"
Sara nodded, and squeezed Grissom's hand. He wasn't sure how to feel about it. He wanted her to be happy, and she seemed happy, but there was something he couldn't quite put his finger on that told him all was not well in the world of Sara Sidle.
Caroline pulled him aside as they exited, Sara clutching her coat over her cast, him right behind her. He handed her the keys to the Denali and told her he'd be right out.
"Listen here, Gil," Caroline said, in a low and surprisingly gentle voice. "Sara is well. Psychologically, she's fit to return to work."
"She talked to you about the-"
"Uh, might I remind you about doctor-patient confidentiality," Caroline held up a warning finger. "She's safe. That's all you need to know. But that doesn't mean she isn't traumatised."
Grissom nodded, suddenly feeling the cold dread spilling back into his gut. I hate being right. Caroline reached underneath the pad hooked to the clipboard, and withdrew a brochure. She handed it to him. "This is for you both," she pointed to the brochure, as she located another. On the front it read Intimacy after Trauma in capitalised letters, in an outdated font. "And this is for you-" she handed him another, PTSD and Partnership.
"You give me a call if you need? If either of you need," she clarified. He suddenly saw why Sara trusted her. Beneath her acerbic, intimidating exterior, there was a fierce compassion. Kind of like Sara herself.
"I will," he nodded. "Thanks, Caroline."
"Good luck, buck."
They parked up outside the Go-Kart Tracks, where the team had agreed to meet after the case closed - the owner had offered them some free laps as a thanks for solving the crime with minimal blowback on the business. They had driven mostly in silence from the hospital. It wasn't a tense silence - Sara seemed relaxed, or at least resolute, and Gil didn't want to shatter that peace for the time being.
When he parked and pulled the handbrake, and they both took off their belts, but neither made a move to get out of the car. Grissom turned in his seat. "How are you really doing, Sara?"
She didn't look up from her lap. "I'm doing better, Gil," she said, and she sounded tired - but truthful. She looked up at him, and gave him the first real smile he had seen in a long time… perhaps even before she'd been abducted. "Really. I am."
"Okay," he sighed. "I believe you." He waited a beat, looking out of the windshield to the warehouse where their teammates were no doubt already blowing off some steam. "So, how do you want to play this?"
"What, with the team?" She asked.
"Yeah," he nodded, looking back at her. "Are we… you know, do we act like we're together, or-?"
Sara smiled with her lips, but frowned with her eyes, puzzled. "Uh, we are together."
"I know! I know, we are," he stammered, and then reached to touch her knee. "That's not what I meant. I just wanted to give the option if you… if you were uncomfortable, or-…"
She grinned, relieved that he didn't seem to be looking for an out himself. She reached across with her good arm and took hold of the hand he'd placed on her knee. "Gil," she said, softly. "We're together. I don't mind the team knowing. We don't need to hide anymore."
Grissom nodded, letting out a sigh of relief. He looked out of the windshield again, brow furrowed. "Ecklie said something earlier today," he said. Sara peered at him.
"Don't tell me you listened," she deadpanned. Gil chuckled.
"Well, even a broken watch has to be right twice a day," he muttered, and she smiled, nodding for him to continue. "He said that, uh, women like to tell the world they're dating someone. And I wanted to know… I wanted to check, if that's true."
"You mean, do I wish we could have been open with our relationship? From the start?" She asked.
"Yeah."
Sara chewed her lip. "I don't- I can't answer that," she replied, staring ahead. "Do I wish we could have sometimes done… some, uh, normal things, and not have to worry about our careers? Maybe, I don't know. But-" she turned to him then. "I fell for you because of who you are when we work together. I love you for more than that now, but I can't deny-" Sara took a breath and released it. "For all the ethical issues with what we did, I don't regret it. I don't think we could have found each other any other way."
Relieved, and touched by her courage and honesty - comforted that it seemed unchanged - Gil nodded, smiled, and squeezed her hand. "Me too," he whispered. She smiled.
"And now it's over," Sara's smiled faded, and she looked away. "We can't work together again."
Grissom hadn't thought about it like that. Sure, they had discussed the mechanics of one of them having to transfer to another forensic team, but he hadn't really thought about the fact that he would never get to work a case with her again. Not in the same way. Not with the same late nights, puzzling something out until the early hours. He wouldn't get to be the firsthand witness to her brilliance or her wit, he wouldn't have the chance to tell his extraneous factoids and stories to someone who would genuinely listen and respond as she did. The realisation that this era of their lives, working together, was suddenly over near winded him. He hadn't expected that grief, which was why it hit him so hard.
He changed tack. "...When did you tell Ecklie we got involved?"
Sara looked up at him again, and she too had clearly been lost in thought. "Two years ago. Why? What did you tell him?"
"Nine years," he said, as if it were obvious. Sara laughed. It was a pealing, musical giggle - effortless joy. It filled him with the kind of reckless hope he needed most in that moment. If she could laugh like that, if she could smile like that, she was still in there beneath the cuts and the burns and the ghosts at her back.
"The Forensic Academy Conference?" she asked, incredulous.
"Yeah." He couldn't understand what was so funny, but he didn't want to question it. He just wanted to live in it. She's laughing. That's all you need to know.
"You... uh, had too many questions about anthropology, for some reason," he said.
"Well, I was stalling," she replied, a coy smile on her face. "I was trying to get the nerve to ask you to dinner."
Gil looked at her, entranced by her brown eyes and the life he saw in them, utterly powerless to the pull she had on him. How she could still look so beautiful in the aftermath of such brutality, he would never know. "You had a ponytail," he said, softly, in wonder.
Sara looked away, a little sadly. She took a breath, and then said, "I'm going to move to swing."
"We talked about this," he replied, flatly.
"I know that you said that you would do it, but I don't want to do that to the team. Besides..." she said, meeting his gaze with another warm smile that set the butterflies in his stomach in flight. "I am sure that I could use more daylight in my life."
Honey, I'd be the sun and the moon for you, both.
TBC
1. "Ponytail" is a standalone story I wrote that would happen after this chapter, so if you want to/haven't yet read that, think of it as a director's cut/extended scene, ha.
2. I absolutely love this scene in the car at the end of 8x02. I think it's just an accepted compulsion I have that I can't not watch it 3-5 times each time. They're both so adorable. Her laugh. I just can't