Title: Journey of the Lonely Whale: Day One
Author: Lisa (ljkwriting4life)
Rating: M (Adult themes, sexual references, low-level coarse language)
Pairing: Gil/Sara
Summary: Sara watches the tape of Heather Kessler's final statement to the police and makes an important decision. (Post Immortality)
THREE
Sara smiled at the helm of the Ishmael when Gil returned to the cockpit carrying the blue windbreaker he had found below deck. It wasn't his spare, it was hers. They were never taken off the boat and so she never took it, and he kept it. She bit her bottom lip and let him help her into it.
"Thank you," she whispered. She had control of the vessel as he slid his arms around her from behind, and she looked out at the stars revealing themselves in the hurriedly darkening sky.
"Sara," Gil whispered against her cheek from behind. He gave her a hug, then let her go. "Are you going to tell me about work?"
"Okay," she said. Neither of them had said very much, and it was probably time. They were on a steady course west into the open water and it would be a long night. Part of her might have imagined collapsing into bed with him to make love at their first opportunity, but until an hour earlier they hadn't even held hands in years. She was tired from the stress and shock of it all. She also knew that being up and about at night but having nothing to do other than watch the stars was one of Gil's great pleasures. She hadn't been on very long trips with him before, though. The Ishmael had turned up somewhere between Paris and Peru and she had been on it at times when she would get a few days off in a row and he was on the coast. What she still didn't really understand about it was, if he was always at sea on his own, how did he ever sleep more than one power nap at a time?
She stretched out for his hand, and Gil slid his palm into hers willingly. Even if he was stressed, he felt steady. His hand was warm and soothed her wind-chilled fingertips. She had lied a little when she said she wasn't cold, but that was the only lie she was going to tell him that night.
"Work," she began carefully. "Something happened."
"What?" he asked hurriedly. His eyes were suddenly wide with concern and Sara remained serious as she watched him. She knew he would understand, but she hoped that he believed her.
"I was in the office," she said. "My office. After I watched you with Heather I was thinking about why I went back there, to Vegas all those years ago. I once told you I had something I needed to prove to myself, because I felt I'd had so little choice in how I walked away. Do you remember?"
Gil nodded as he relaxed a little, reassured that she was not about to describe something catastrophic, like another explosion or another of their friends being hurt. He knew her health had forced her to leave Vegas the first time. He had listened to her sobbing on the phone when she finally got up the courage to call him from afar. He had wanted to go to her but she'd ordered him not to. Hank had still been alive, their beautiful old rescue dog, and he needed Gil. Sara had been in a terrible state too, but she hadn't been ready for him to find her, so she made him promise not to. And but for that wonderful surprise in the Costa Rican rainforest, he had always kept that promise.
"I realised today," Sara continued seriously, with sincerity. "And I really mean this, that I achieved what I set out to do after I went back to that job. I felt satisfied, professionally. But I also realised, that if I spent the next ten years of my life as the director of the lab, then I would also be making a choice to be alone for the rest of my life. I had thought I was okay with that-" She smiled sadly, met his eyes, and added, "You have no idea how often I've told myself I was okay with that."
"Yes I do," Gil said softly, with such an earnest look in his eyes she knew he'd done the same.
"Then I saw you again," Sara continued. "I heard your voice again, I looked into your eyes again, and I stood next to you and I felt you…reaching out to me. I thought I didn't want to hear it."
"I wanted to hold your hand, when we were sitting with the bees," he said with a light smile.
"I know," Sara said. Her expression softened as her eyes searched his face. "I felt you there."
"But Sara," he said. He reached out to tuck some of her hair behind her ear. "Honey you only just got promoted, and everyone is so proud of you. I'm so proud of you. I don't want you to regret-"
"I haven't quit," she said. She laughed. "Yet. I mean I might have done it today, but Catherine made me promise not to do anything until tomorrow, and frankly I was more concerned with getting a seat on the next plane out here to find you, thank you very much."
Gil chuckled. He touched her cheek with his knuckles and bit his bottom lip. His eyes shone with tears as he waited patiently for her to continue. Sara swallowed the lump in her throat.
"The lab can get a new director," she said evenly. "You always had the right perspective on this, and it's taken me time to see it. The truth is the lab will continue long after I'm gone and it won't miss me. When I was growing up in foster care, there weren't a lot of certainties in my life, but one thing I knew for sure was that if something happened to me, no one would miss me. All I wished for was a home, with someone who might care enough about me to miss me if I was gone. As a girl I used to fall back to sleep after nightmares by saying, 'I love you', to myself."
"I know," Gil whispered. "Sara, I know."
She nodded heartily and swiped at the tears trapped in her eyes as she continued to speak.
"Since then, despite that wish, I've made a lot of choices about who I was and what I was doing that meant I remained alone. And today…I decided that I couldn't make the choice to be alone again. Knowing I got the job, knowing I could do the job, getting those extra years to work alongside Greg and Nick, and knowing that in the past six years I've helped so many more families, that is all I ever needed from Las Vegas, Gil. Head held high, hand on my heart, if I never set foot in that lab again I won't regret it. If it forgets me tomorrow, I won't care. But if something happened to you and I wasn't with you because I was there, I would never recover, and I wasn't afraid last night in the face of those explosives because at least we were together. So, I'm making a different choice."
She forced herself to stop talking then, because she could see that Gil was overwhelmed, and she was as well. She turned her full attention back to the helm, its instruments, the dark water ahead and the sky. She smiled at the sight of a plane's lights blinking overhead amidst the stars.
"I'm not going to do this as eloquently as you," Gil began. It made Sara chuckle, but she kept her eyes on the night sky. "What?" Gil asked, confused by her reaction.
"Catherine has ordered us to never again complain to her about how bad we think we are at relationships, because in her words, it's bullshit." Sara paused. "She's a little bit right, though. You're not ineloquent, Gil. When you're passionate no one can shut you up, and you speak in way that captivates the people around you. Look at last night, the whale story? It was beautiful. Sure, you're more comfortable talking when it's not personal, but we've gotten a long way past that before, even if, in the last few years we haven't talked at all. So don't put yourself down to me, because I don't believe you. I know you didn't use your speaking voice a lot at home, in the place where I suppose most people learn to talk aloud about their feelings. Guess what? Neither did I. It's okay."
"Mom died," Gil said suddenly, urgently. "I thought of sending you a message, I just…"
Sara pressed her lips together and nodded. She looked at the stars and reached out blindly, and Gil held her hand again. She gave his fingers a firm, supportive squeeze before letting go.
"You knew," he said. He sighed. Sara couldn't tell if it was with relief or disappointment.
"I did," she admitted. "I'm sorry. I thought about sending you a message too, or trying to call. It was just hard. After the divorce I didn't keep in touch with her. I was afraid of what she would think of me, and I knew I couldn't answer any questions she had about you, but I still subscribed to the Foundation and school newsletters. I don't know why, but I always opened those emails. I saw her picture on the cover one day and I knew, I just cried. I contacted the Foundation and they said there would be no funeral at your mom's request, but they had set up a fund for donations, for a scholarship. I made a donation in my name to thank her, and to tell her somehow that I was sorry."
"She never blamed you, Sara," Gil whispered in a choked voice. "Never."
"It's okay if she did, you're her son and only child and she loved you," she said with an accepting shrug and a smile. "Anyway, she would have been partly right, we were both to blame." She looked at Gil's pale, grief-stricken face. "What would she say about all this, I wonder?"
"Oh, I know that," he said confidently. Sara raised her eyebrows and waited. "She would tell me yet again that she still can't understand why we divorced when she knows I love you with my whole heart, and when she thought you loved me. We'd had that conversation, a lot. She liked you, Sara, you won her over. She respected the way you stood up for yourself, and your compassion and honesty. She told me that, also a lot. So, she would point out to me that I don't deserve your forgiveness, and she would give me that look, that mom look that still makes me feel sick in the stomach even though my hair is white, the one warning me I better get my act together, or else."
"And um," Sara hesitated. "How do you think you might like to do that?"
"Get my act together?" he asked. Sara nodded curiously as he smiled. He looked her directly in the eyes as he answered. "Easy," he said. "By loving you, every day, for the rest of my life."
Sara was aware of her heart thumping heavily in her chest as she raised her brow again.
When Gil knew what he wanted to say, he did just come right out and say it.
It still took her breath away.
"Really?" she asked.
"If you'll let me, yes," he said quietly. "I think I was trying to say 'I'm sorry' in the corridor today, Sara. I don't think I'll ever find a way to say goodbye to you, I love you, but I've been selfish. When I left Vegas it was to find you, to be with you, but it was also for me. I got distracted by that idea. I used the freedom I suddenly had to see everything I wanted to see, to investigate all the things I had always dreamed of learning about, and when you told me you felt you needed to finish things in Vegas, I chose not to come with you. My amazing wife, who I knew accepted me as I was, and whose acceptance I took advantage of so I could do my thing, and not look back. I took the fact that I would always see you eventually for granted while I left you to defend the arrangement to our old friends and my mother, so I didn't have to. I let you become just a small part of my life, and I let myself become a small part of yours, until I could justify letting you go entirely, for your own good. And I've seen every one of your missed calls since, darlin'. I didn't know what to say. Since I lost you, I've been lost as well. Lost out on these oceans, trying to find some meaning in it all. Very free."
Sara had pressed her fingers to her lips again as she listened to him finally talking. It was so much better than the whale story or an excerpt of Shakespeare, because it was his story, and his was the only story she had ever wanted to hear. She was crying. She didn't know if he could see that, she was silent, shaking, and her heart was aching. It soothed her to know that Gil understood himself, but she hated hearing him express such deep sadness at what his own wonderful life had become. He cast himself as a malevolent figure, but he never had a wicked bone in his body, and Sara had always believed that he deserved that freedom to take working opportunities around the world. He was brilliant, and adventurous, and he had given so much of himself to Vegas. It wasn't his fault. They had both been selfish, and maybe they had both simply been at different stages of their lives.
"Maybe we're both whales," she whispered after dropping her hand.
Gil stared at her lips, possibly reading her lips in the dim lighting from the canopy above them because he could barely hear her over the sound of the boat and the ocean. She barely heard herself. His eyes were full and serious but he had not made a move to touch her as she cried.
Sara knew why he was waiting. In his mind he had just confessed to ending their marriage.
"You haven't been able to hear me," Sara continued. "I haven't been able to hear you. We haven't been able to hear each other."
Just like in the car on the way to Heather's house, she realised with a start. It was the first time they had spent any time alone together in years, and they'd sat in silence for the entire drive. It had been so quiet it had actually been painful for Sara to sit at the wheel, but she forced herself not to talk, and as soon as they had gotten out of the car, what had Gil said when she brought it up?
I thought we were talking.
Sara felt they had always been capable of having conversations while saying very little, but it required eye contact, proximity and familiarity, the odd ASL sign, and they never quite achieved it over video calls and weekends here or there that only became more infrequent. They shouldn't have expected it to happen in the car right away, positioned so they couldn't even look at one another.
Well, they were looking at one another now. Sara could see Gil's breath in the cool night air between them. His inquisitive, careful eyes were boring into hers. He was right, they were talking.
Sara looked away first, it was intense and she wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.
"Hot chocolate?" Gil asked suddenly.
Sara did laugh at that. She wiped her eyes and glanced back at him with a grin. Of course. He opened the low gate to the cockpit that also contained the fold-away seats, but before he moved away from the helm he briefly clasped her arm and offered her a gentle smile. He closed the gate behind him and disappeared over the edge of the ladder, climbing down the few steps to the deck. He left Sara to her thoughts, but she tried not to think about anything as she waited.
She watched the water instead. The black, glistening surface in the night, beneath the stars and the waning crescent moon. There were a few lights in the distance from other boats or large shipping vessels, but Gil had an alarm that would go off it they ever got too close. He would have only turned it off had he been planning to get intentionally close to a fishing boat doing the wrong thing. What he had been doing was too risky, she thought. He too easily could have been shot, or caught trespassing on board and stabbed, or pushed overboard and left to drown. She knew he was careful and when he was working with those organisations there were protocols and training, but she never wanted him to risk his life to save the whales, or the sharks. He had nothing left to prove.
"Here," he said as he returned.
Sara accepted the two cups and thermos from around his fingers and under his arm before Gil made it back into the cockpit, with a blanket around his shoulders. Once the gate was closed he pulled the seats down and locked them in place. Sara sat. She smiled as he sat beside her and also wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, just as she had done for him a good fifteen years earlier.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"Sometimes if it was warm I'd sleep up here, under the stars," he told her, as he took the thermos from her and poured hot chocolate into the two cups that Sara held out.
"It's not too cold," she assured him. It would be far colder once they got to Seattle or Vancouver or Anchorage, or whatever 'up the coast' meant to Gil. At least she had her passport.
Was that the decision, she wondered? Was she just going to call Ecklie in a few hours' time and quit? 'Hi Conrad, I've run off with my ex-husband, who it turns out I'm still in love with. Bye!'
He was going to freak out, she thought with a chuckle.
"What?" Gil asked her with a mischievous glint in his eye, as he packed away the thermos.
"I…was just imagining Conrad's face when I tell him where I am," Sara said with a grin.
Gil's eyes sparkled as he laughed. Sara loved his laugh. She suspected that he didn't laugh enough each day, and neither had she, she realised. Maybe they could work on that too.
Gil did become more serious as the reality of what she was talking about dawned on him.
"What are you going to do?" he asked. He frowned in thought. "You're not homeless."
"Oh, that's very astute of you," Sara teased. "I have a house, a small condo. I can hire a company to pack it up. Greg's got a spare key in case of emergencies. I could lease it or sell it."
"You don't have to do that right away," Gil said.
"No I don't," she agreed, though without an income there wasn't much reason to keep paying for it if she wasn't going to be there. She sighed and took the chance to rest her head on Gil's shoulder again. She closed her eyes when he wrapped an arm around her back and held her far hip. He sipped his hot chocolate, and Sara's free hand rested against the inside of his nearest thigh.
She could fall asleep sitting up against him and it could just about be the most restful sleep she would have had in years, she thought tiredly.
"What's in the bag?" Gil asked quietly into the night. He would have seen her satchel, tossed onto the bed. It was by no means a large bag. Sara knew he was curious and trying to plan. Planning was good. She hadn't had much time for that, and he knew it.
"Not a lot," she mumbled, as she mentally rewatched her own mad dash through her house on the way to the airport. "A singlet, a pair of ankle socks, two pairs of undies, a flattened baseball cap, my toothbrush and hairbrush, a little jewellery, and then just the usuals: lip balm, a little hand cream and sanitiser, deodorant, tampons, wallet, phone, tablet, chargers, and my passport. I was hoping you still had my old sandals tucked away, because these are my only shoes and pants now."
Gil smiled against the top of her head. She was proud to have packed for either two hours or forever, all in about ten minutes, but mostly she had brought things she often had with her anyway.
"You think I kept your old boat shoes?" Gil quipped suddenly.
Sara nodded. She could tell by the way he held her and rubbed her hip that he had them.
"You're right, I have them," he whispered. "Do you…want to go back and get anything else?"
"I suspect anything else I might need from a practical point of view can be picked up along the way, and I'm downsizing," she whispered. "I have the most important things I need."
Gil squeezed her waist and pressed his lips to her temple, and she lifted her head slightly to give him better access. She felt his beard against her cheek and they nuzzled quietly.
"I've missed you," he whispered into her hair. "More than you could have ever imagined."
Sara nodded. She hesitated before moving, but she couldn't wait any longer. She turned her face to his and his lips slid quickly over hers. He was ready too. She squeezed his thigh as they kissed and she tried to keep her cup steady in her lap as Gil did the same. The kiss was slow and sweet, and Sara moaned when his tongue dipped carefully into her mouth in that way that made her feel loved.
She moved her hand from his leg and wrapped it around his back to be closer to him, and she tried to kiss him with the love she still had for him as well. She was deeply attracted to him.
It was by far the craziest thing she had ever done. Crazier than boldly giving him her number the week they met at the forensics conference, crazier than moving to Vegas overnight after he eventually called to ask for her help at the lab, crazier than all the times she pursued him despite his stubbornness and fears, or yelled at Ecklie, or risked her life, or lost her temper. It was crazy to be kissing him, to feel their tongues slowly stroking in her mouth, to feel the skin of his back beneath his shirt and his hand steadily squeezing her hip and her own heart racing, but it also felt like home.
When the kiss ended, Gil put his head on her shoulder and pressed his face against her neck. She felt his moist eyelashes blinking against her. Her hand slid out from under his shirt and quickly wrapped around the back of his head. She combed her fingers through his hair to soothe him.
"Oh Sara, are you sure?" he asked in a gravelly voice.
Sara just nodded. She was not crazy and had never been surer in her life. They could do this.
She sat with him like that for a long time, enjoying the feeling of Gil's breath on her neck and her fingers in his silver hair as she rubbed his scalp and he pressed soft kisses against her skin. The loud yawn crept up on her and she held his head to reassure him as she turned her own head away.
Gil chuckled and sat upright. He observed her with such tenderness, she had forgotten.
"Do you want to try and get some sleep?" he asked.
"I probably should," she admitted. She laughed and stared into the last of her no-longer-so-hot chocolate. "I must be getting old," she said. She glanced back at him with a rueful smile. "Ten years ago I would have jumped you the second I got on board."
Gil laughed. He genuinely, loudly, happily laughed. His blue eyes sparkled with joy, and Sara was so glad to see it. She reached out and caressed his cheek. She didn't want to leave him up there.
"How do you normally sleep if you're out here on your own these days?" she asked.
"I still use alarms," he explained. "The AIS is always on; I trust the equipment. If I'm out in open water like this and there isn't much traffic I'll set my alarm for every hour, sometimes every two hours, otherwise it's every twenty minutes. I might only be up for a few minutes but it's just enough to check on things. Often I'll sleep during the day too, but if I'm not in a rush to be anywhere I'll just head further out at night. After awhile it becomes…a natural decision, when to sleep."
"You know the longest I've ever spent on this boat is a couple of days at a time."
Sara let him see that she was nervous. A little harbour-hopping was fun, but the open water, and the idea that they would just go below deck and sleep was slightly terrifying. What if a wave came along and tipped them over? What if another boat came along and someone came on board?
Too much death, Sara. That so rarely happens. You've seen too much of killing, and death.
"We'll take it slow," Gil answered. "I wanted to head out here tonight so I could be distracted but there's no rush. Tomorrow we'll head up the coast, a few days at a time, and we'll relax in marinas, the odd hotel. You might have calls to make, you might decide you want to get off-"
"The boat, or just in general?" she asked quickly, quirking a suggestive eyebrow upwards. She enjoyed the sight of his cheeks flushing beneath the stars and the canopy light as he stared at her, speechless. She liked that she made him speechless. She would never hold that against him. He was so dear to her. "I'm not going anywhere, Gil," she promised. She squeezed his wrist and then took his cup off him. "Except to bed," she added. "Come and find me when you're ready."