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)
FOUR
Gil watched Sara leaning forward with her elbows propped against the starboard railing of the Ishmael in the morning sun and smiled. She was in her navy singlet and the same long pants and shoes she had worn the previous day. She had her phone pressed against her ear and her free palm was clapped over her forehead. The boat was bobbing on the open water. On any other occasion he might have assumed Sara was feeling seasick, but no, she was just on the phone to Ecklie.
Gil was pleased she had slept well throughout the night, stirring when his alarms woke him but snuggling into him and going back to sleep whenever he returned. He had never had so much trouble getting up to his alarms, but he hadn't slept much. He had watched Sara sleep in one of his large t-shirts, he had kissed her and held her, he had dozed against her, but deep sleep had eluded him. By the time she woke he had turned the boat back to the coast, and contrary to her taunt about his cell service, his cell booster did an excellent job of dragging in signals from coastal towers.
"Because I'm in California, Conrad!" Sara exclaimed suddenly. She looked around for him to share the exasperated look in her eyes, and Gil walked closer to her. He leant against the railing nearby and scanned the horizon. "Months, I think," Sara continued, answering a question he couldn't hear. "Forever maybe, I don't know… Well, that's your opinion, but Gil's my husband."
Gil was startled to hear her speak in present tense. Sara saw his whiplash reaction in her peripheral vision and she reached out to grasp his forearm, to keep him with her as she spoke.
"Have you asked Catherine?" she said into the phone. "No, I haven't called her yet. I thought I should call you first, but she's the only person who knew I was coming so at least she won't be surprised." She sighed. "Okay. Yeah, okay, I'm pretty sure if you email me the paperwork I can sign it and get it back to you." She glanced sideways at Gil and he nodded. "Okay, thank you Conrad. Bye."
"Well?" Gil asked as she ended the call and shot him another expressive look. "Is he pissed?"
"A little bit," Sara conceded with a playful glint in her brown eyes. "It seems I'm taking, 'an unexpected period of long service leave, and regret to inform the department that I will not be able to accept the role of Lab Director'."
"That sounds very dignified," Gil said, teasing her with his eyes. Sara pursed her lips at him and smiled in that familiar way that he had missed so much. He covered her hand on his arm with his own and watched the breeze lift her curly hair off her shoulders. It looked curlier than it had the evening before, full of salt and fresh air. "You called me your husband," he whispered in wonder.
"I did, didn't I," she said. She squinted at him in the sun and smiled softly. "Aren't you?"
"Not legally."
"No," she agreed, and that was the end of that conversation. For the time being, Gil thought. "So," Sara continued as she gestured at the water. "Shouldn't you be steering or something?"
"Not yet," he said with a wise smirk. He shucked his arm gently from beneath her hand and reached up to rub her neck. He enjoyed the sound of her sigh as she closed her eyes. "I just checked the forecast," he continued. "Today will be fine, but conditions over the next few days are going to deteriorate. I thought I'd see if we could get a slip at Long Beach or somewhere nearby. We probably need to get you some warmer clothes, we could get a nice hotel and wait out the weather."
"I could ask Greg to overnight a box of my gear to a hotel or pick-up point." Sara frowned thoughtfully and laughed. "I don't know how I feel about asking him to pack a few more bras."
"Oh, I think he'd love to help with that," Gil said. They both laughed at the thought.
Immediately, her phone rang, and Sara remarked playfully on the excellent service and Greg's excellent timing before she answered on video. She deliberately kept Gil out of picture.
"Good morning, Greg," she said with a big smile. She turned around and sat down with her back against the side of the boat, so there was no risk of her dropping her phone into the water and so that Greg got a good view of exactly where she was. It was a very good morning, Gil agreed.
"Sara!" he shouted. "I know you're the boss-boss now, but Ecklie was just here, he's freaking out, he said you're gone! Are you okay? Where are you? Is that the ocean? Are you…moving?"
"Constantly," Sara said. She smiled at him. "I'm somewhere off the LA coast, with Gil."
"For real?" he asked.
Sara waved Gil to her quickly and adjusted her arm so that he could slip into the picture.
"For real," he said, unable to help his broad smile. Sara was radiating joy and it was catching.
"Oh my God," Greg said as the video flickered in and out. "Oh my God."
"Greg, I'm going to need you to do me a favour-"
"Catherine!" he screamed off-camera. "Catherine, get in here!" The phone shook all around the room and Gil assumed Greg had seen Catherine walk past. They had a good view of the linoleum.
"Where's the fire, Greg?" Catherine asked plainly.
"Did you know about this?" Greg asked. He lifted the phone to her, and Catherine broke into a smile as she saw the two of them. "Oh, hello you two," she said smoothly. "I've been summoned."
"I only called Ecklie a few minutes ago," Sara said. "I'm sorry, Cath."
"Don't be, I was here already just in case, we'll figure it out. Are you calling to gloat?"
"Actually, I wanted to ask Greg if he can use the key to my house to send me some clothes."
"Oh, we need clothes all of a sudden, do we?" Catherine asked, teasing her and laughing.
"Sure I'll help, Sara," Greg said. "Can you email me, like a list, and where to send it?"
"Once I know, absolutely," she said. "You'll hear from me soon, probably by tonight."
Gil squeezed Sara's thigh to get her attention and then gestured to the cockpit, and Sara nodded for him to go, do his job, whatever he had to do. He leant slightly closer to her so he could see Greg and Catherine huddled around Greg's phone, and he waved by wiggling his fingertips.
"Goodbye, you lucky bastard!" Greg called, and Catherine walloped him across the chest.
Gil climbed the stairs to the nearby cockpit, listening to the sound of Sara's happy laugh.
When she finished the call she disappeared below deck, and Gil retrieved his own phone from his jacket to call the marina. It was obviously his lucky day. There were short or long-term slips available, and he quickly reserved a spot for a week. Then he looked up the number for the Hyatt.
When Sara returned she was in sunglasses and had tied her hair back in a bun that was threaded through the back of the baseball cap she had stuffed into her bag. The brim was bent thanks to her efforts. She had also put her blue windbreaker on, and Gil could not help himself once she sat and stretched her long legs out in front of her. She held a full water bottle in her lap.
"You look beautiful," he said.
"You're not so bad yourself," she said as she kept her eyes on the horizon. "Do you think Catherine will do the job if they ask her? Lindsey's there, I guess, but leave the FBI?"
"I think she could do it blindfolded and with her hands tied behind her back if she wanted," Gil said. "The FBI would loan her out for a few months if it's just temporary."
"It's not temporary, not for me," Sara said. "I don't want us to be in two places at once anymore. As enjoyable as some of the reunions were, I'd rather it was more of an everyday thing."
"Every day?" Gil asked, stunned, though he would not object to recreating some of those reunions she was talking about as often as possible. Sara cackled, and he realised he had slightly misheard her. His gaze softened. "I want being with you to be an everyday thing too," he said.
She opened the cap on the bottle of water and took a sip, then observed him closely.
"Are you nervous?" she asked.
"About being with you? No," he said quickly, confidently.
Sara pursed her lips in a self-satisfied smile and Gil returned a relaxed smile of his own. Any nerves had disappeared the moment they had held each other in bed and kissed the previous night.
"I just don't want us to be interrupted by an alarm," he explained. "Every twenty minutes."
They'd had sex on the boat before, but that had been when they were lazily anchored in a harbour for the day, or docked at the marina, or it had simply been rather quick. Gil did not want this to be quick, and he tried to tell Sara that with his eyes and a pointed look on his face.
"Ah, a wise man," she agreed softly. She shifted in her seat and he smirked, feeling smug.
He just could not believe that he could still make Sara feel, well, anything really, but to think she still wanted him? Twenty-four hours earlier, he would have said that was impossible. Impossible.
"Um," he began. He cleared his throat and blushed. "Have you been to Long Beach before?"
"A long, long time ago." Sara smiled and waited to hear what he had to say about it.
"There are four small islands on the way in, and the closest island to the Shoreline Marina where we'll stay is actually called Grissom. Named after Virgil Grissom, one of four astronauts who died during a pre-launch test for the Apollo 1. They call them the Astronaut Islands."
"That is very cool," Sara said with a bright smile. "Is there an observatory? I want to see it."
Gil felt bad he was about to ruin her vision with the truth, but he powered ahead with it.
"Well, they're actually artificial islands that conceal drilling rigs, owned by oil companies."
"And they named them after astronauts?" Sara asked. She looked aghast. "What the hell?"
Gil just shrugged. Sara narrowed her eyes sternly and frowned.
"Now I really want to see them," she said. "So I can glare at them as we go past."
Gil chuckled and sped the boat up. He would have her there by lunch time.
Gil stood at the large window of the hotel bedroom and let his eyes absorb the sight of the marina and the harbour at sunset on the other side of the glass. The horizon and the sky above it glowed a deep pink and orange as the sun finally dipped out of sight. Above the last glimmers of light lay a darkening blue sky with no hint of the clouds the forecast still insisted were coming. Gil didn't care if it didn't rain, though. There was nowhere else on earth that he would rather be.
He smiled and turned his head when he heard Sara pad out of the bathroom in bare feet just behind him. She was wrapped only in a hotel robe, and she had twisted her wet hair around one hand to wring it out, as the other carried her clothes from the day to a nearby chair. Her cheeks were pink from the hot water and she had a soft, thoughtful look on her face as she moved about the room. Suddenly she seemed shy about looking him in the eyes, but when she did he let her know he understood. He was already in his robe, after his shower, and he was feeling just as raw, and full. Making love had been everything he remembered and more. He never wanted to forget this day.
"Are you all right?" he asked softly. He stretched his arm out for her.
"Yes," she said. She smiled a little as she walked up to him. They wrapped their arms around each other and Gil rubbed her back as she turned her head to look out the window, as he had been doing. "I missed the best of the sunset," she mumbled tiredly.
"Mm, we'll have a lot more of those," he promised. "The lights of the harbour are nice."
Sara hummed in agreement.
"Gil, this suite is a lot for a week," she finally said. "The bathroom's as big as the boat, we could have shared the shower. It has a decorative waterfall between the two showerheads."
Gil chuckled at her discomfort with the extravagance, but with that had come his ability to request brand new, never-before-used robes for the woman who got twitchy about unclean hotels.
"We're here for a week to make sure you can do any shopping you need or get any other belongings you want shipped over," he said kindly. "To give Greg time to pack and the courier time to arrive without us worrying that we need to leave. There's a business centre so you can do the lab's paperwork tomorrow. It's the closest to the boat and restaurants, and we can walk to the beach every day. It's fine, Sara. Believe me, it's the nicest hotel I've stayed at in a long time too."
She lifted her head and pressed a kiss to his cheek, and he shut his eyes and sighed.
"I love you," she whispered in his ear.
A tear trickled from his eye without warning and before he could lift his hand Sara touched his jaw, turned his face toward her, and kissed his cheek. He had been doing so well not to cry, he thought. The feeling of her arms wrapped around his bare back as they climaxed and then as she cried had almost been enough to do him in, but it seemed the smell of her freshly washed hair was the thing that would tip him over the edge. Sara whispered soothing words in his ear and wrapped her strong, warm arms around his back again. Gil turned into her and sobbed into her shoulder.
"Oh sweetheart," she said as his arms finally wrapped around her as well. "Let it go, all the years, let everything go. I've got you now."
Gil didn't know how long it took, but eventually he could breathe calmly again. He focused on the feeling of her warm body, alive with him, and the dampness of her cool, scented hair against his forehead. Sara. He lifted his head and pressed his face against her cheek, and after a quiet moment Sara turned and kissed his lips. Then she playfully grabbed his face and pecked across his cheeks and bearded jaw. Gil sighed. He took her hands and brushed his thumbs across her soft skin. Their arms relaxed until they were just standing at the window, watching each other, holding hands.
"So," Sara began after a minute. She smiled a little and encouraged him with her eyes. "Dinner? Should we be extravagant and order in? I don't feel like sitting in a noisy restaurant."
"I couldn't think of anything worse," Gil agreed quickly. That took a lot of energy on the best of days and he was emotionally wrung out, and Sara looked no better. She had fresh tears in her eyes and a glazed, stunned look on her face. "So that was Day One," Gil joked suddenly. He gave her hands a squeeze and sent her a hopeful look that asked how he was doing so far, and Sara dropped her head forward and laughed. "Are you sure you're okay?" he asked when she kept her head down.
"Yeah," she said. She finally lifted her eyes to his and he observed the flush on her cheeks. "On the one hand, I'm wonderful, my body feels so loved, and strong. On the other hand, I'm also feeling a little wobbly. I think it's partly from coming off the boat, and partly the fact we just made love and it was…very special. I'm still… I'll be fine, I'm okay, I'm just not up for a walk yet."
"That's okay," he said gently. "We don't have to go anywhere. I'm not going anywhere."
Sara thanked him with an emotional smile and squeezed his hands.
Gil felt the isolation of the past few years drift further into history as he took another deep breath. He couldn't believe he had just cried like that with her. He recalled the way she had lovingly kissed and touched his body throughout the day, and he let some more of that blame and sadness go, as it seemed Sara already had. Even as she had walked toward him the previous afternoon in San Diego there had been a lightness about her. She was making a choice, as she said. Not to be alone. To be with him. To know where he was in the world, to know if he was all right and if he was happy, and Gil was more than willing to make the same choice. He would. He had. He was in love with her.
"I'm so happy," he told her before he let go of her hands. "Let's order in, we need a rest."
"We do. You find the menu, and you should eat some good quality meat and vegetables while we're on land. I need to email Greg." She retrieved her tablet from her bag and went in search of the card with the wi-fi password on it. "Gil," she soon called from the living room and kitchen, as Gil found a menu propped on the small table in the corner of the bedroom. "Tell me everything you think I'll need." She carried her tablet back into the bedroom as she typed the code onto the screen. "It's our room number and your surname, like the astronaut…or my favourite entomologist."
Gil laughed as she laid across the bed on her stomach. She bent the tablet's cover to prop it up and exposed a thin keyboard, but she paused to choose a meal when Gil handed her the menu.
"What are you getting?" she asked as she bent her knees and crossed her ankles in the air.
"Herb crusted chicken and vegetables," he said. They still thought similarly, because he was keen to eat something that wasn't fish or pasta or pre-packaged. Sara chose the veggie burger with pickles and fries, and Gil placed the order and then lay down on the bed beside her to watch her email their friend, and in many ways their protégé. "Gloves," he said as she began her list. He rubbed circles on her back and kissed the robe on her shoulder as he listened to her type while he talked. "A beanie. A fleece jumper. A puffer jacket or vest. A couple of long-sleeved shirts. Another singlet? Jeans? In summer it's nice but can still be cold at night, and in winter it's freezing. We should get you waterproof pants while we're here, and a proper hat as well, with decent protection from the sun."
"Okay," she whispered. She closed her eyes and sighed as Gil continued to rub her back. "I'll make a second list for shopping we need to do here. I was thinking of Costa Rica and our summer in Paris when I packed, not…the Gulf of Alaska in the middle of winter or – that feels so nice, Gil – or wherever we might end up, I don't mind. No schedule, no responsibilities, it's been a long time."
"I was just beginning a holiday of my own when Ecklie called me in."
"Really," Sara said with a smirk. She looked at him. "I heard you were almost arrested for trespassing on a neighbouring boat you had stalked back to San Diego because of shark fins."
"Well…yeah," Gil admitted with a laugh, as Sara rolled her eyes and chuckled. "But I'd already been coming this way for a Californian vacation, and what can I say, we crossed paths. And truthfully, it was fun teaching Lindsey, but I'm content not to do that anymore. I was sitting outside, enjoying the day and my lack of responsibilities quite happily before Catherine roped me into it."
"She's good at that," Sara said. Gil hummed and kissed her robed shoulder again. "And maybe there are ways to protect the planet without blowing holes in boats?" she asked carefully.
"Mmhmm," he hummed. He reached up and pulled the shoulder of her robe down to expose her freckled skin. "No desire to see another bomb for a while," he admitted, distracted.
"Good. Me either," she whispered. She sucked in a breath. "Um, the list, Gil. Extra socks."
"Sure, whatever you want," he said as he kissed and nuzzled around the front of her shoulder and her upper arm. "Don't forget to tell Greg where you keep your bras."
"Oh, I won't," she mumbled with wide eyes as he chuckled against her. "Oh!" she said suddenly, though her exclamation had nothing to do with his mouth on her. "My new camera!" She typed busily onto the screen as Gil continued to take his time reacquainting himself with her lovely skin. "You know I'm going to get you back for this later," she added as she worked on her email.
"Sure. I'd like that a lot," he assured her. He lifted his eyes in time to see her press her lips together in a smile. Her eyes were bright when she glanced at him. "What?" he asked innocently.
"When I was standing in my office yesterday," Sara began. "Trying to decide what to do, I was so upset, Gil. A day later and I can't stop smiling, I feel whole again, I want to make love again, and this feels different to before, maybe because I'm older, and neither of us has any unfinished business in Vegas anymore, and we can just enjoy each other, and enjoy each day as it comes."
"Yes," Gil agreed. "And there's plenty of work around that doesn't involve explosives if we want it. We can stop for a few months and volunteer, or you can teach or work online from the boat, freelance. Or we can just fish and draw and take photos of dolphins and watch the sun rise and set."
"You really are retired, aren't you," Sara said with a tender, accepting smile.
"Getting there," he assured her with a wink. "And you, darlin'?"
"I need to be retired for a while," she said. "Then we'll see." She took his hand again as they watched each other. "But I promise," she said. "From the bottom of my heart, Gil, I'll be with you."
"And if there's something you really want to do," Gil said. "I'm coming along for the ride."
"Absolutely," she replied with a big grin. She hesitated, then initiated a brief but tender kiss.
Gil then rolled off the bed so Sara could rest and finish her email, and he went to fetch two glasses of water. He drank his in the kitchen and stared at his left hand on the countertop. It was missing a gold ring, and it had been for a long time. It certainly felt like he and Sara had renewed their vows a few times over the past day, but it was still just a day. Gil wanted to ask her to marry him again, but maybe the next day, at the bedroom window as they watched the heavy rain blow in.
When he returned to the bedroom, Sara had propped herself up against a few pillows at the head of the bed. Her knees were raised and the tablet was balanced in her lap. She was reading.
"Thank you, darling," she said automatically when he handed her the glass of water. It sounded so natural, like something she had said a hundred times before, but 'darling' from Sara was new. She took a sip and handed the glass back to him, and Gil put it on the bedside table beside her.
"Has Greg replied already?" he asked.
"Yes actually, he must have been checking every minute. He said he'll head to my place after shift tomorrow, but I was just reading the news." She closed the tablet, put it on the bedside table, and stretched her legs out. Gil sat on the side of the bed and rested his hand on her nearest knee where her robe had fallen open. He gave it an affectionate squeeze and Sara smiled at him calmly.
He took a deep breath. He could say some of those words he was planning now, in fact.
"Thank you, Sara," he said. "For hearing me even when I couldn't find the words for you. For not giving up, for your patience and your bravery. I know the decision yesterday wasn't as easy as you've made it look. You make me brave too. Every day won't be a lonely journey, because of you."
Sara gripped his hand and grinned at him. Happy tears shone in her warm, confident eyes.
"Because of us," she said.
A/N: That's all for now, folks! I kind of designed this as either a stand-alone or possibly the beginning of a series, in case I feel like adding to the timeline with some new adventures as they move toward Vegas again (typically I just can't help myself, so we'll see). Please review and let me know if you'd like me to pick this up in future, and thanks for reading!