Title: Journey of the Lonely Whale: Evolution (Month 12)

Author: Lisa (ljkwriting4life)

Rating: M. This story contains strong adult themes including references to violence, sexual references, and coarse language.

Pairing: Gil/Sara

Summary: One year since re-marrying, Gil and Sara return to San Diego to fulfil work commitments. While Sara becomes involved in a case that stirs memories of the past, she is also pushed by those around her to consider her future and her place in the world.

Notes: The JOTLW series aims to fill a gap between Immortality and CSI: Vegas. It does foreshadow CSI: Vegas and refers often to storylines established in the original CSI.

NINE

Gil had never been so glad to be on solid ground. The two-and-a-half hour, Sunday night flight from Portland had been uneventful, he'd thankfully had no one seated beside him, and even better, he hadn't thrown up since Thursday afternoon. When the plane touched down in San Diego he had an intense, relieved feeling of coming home. He had snacked on potato chips during take-off and landing to quell his nervous stomach and he bundled up his rubbish into his carry-on and took a sip of water from his water bottle, before also packing that away. Around him, everyone stood as soon as the seatbelt sign was turned off, and he resisted the urge to roll his eyes. That wasn't going to help anyone get off the plane any faster, but human behaviour was what it was, and some things never changed. His fellow passengers all grabbed for their bags in the overhead lockers but Gil just sat and waited. He was just as eager as anyone else to get off the flight, but bustling was pointless.

What felt like many minutes later, the doors to the aircraft were finally opened, and people were able to disembark with their luggage. Gil waited for the rows behind him to mostly empty out so he didn't block anyone's path as he stood. He moved into the aisle with his laptop bag, and finally reached for his larger bag in the overhead locker. It was the last one left in that locker, and he smiled. His suit was packed away in that bag. He was glad he hadn't worn his new clothes on Thursday for the online meeting once he realised how sick he was about to become and had instead kept his dress casual. Even then, he had saved his casual pants by getting them off before anything happened, but the old collared, short-sleeved shirt he had worn that day had been binned. He had washed his singlet and shorts and had dried them in the room, but they would need a hot wash.

He thought he might take a pair of Sara's latex gloves from her work kit to do his washing.

Once he was sure he had everything, he moved slowly down the aisle to the front of the plane. There were a few other stragglers still fumbling with luggage or sitting to wait until even he got off before them. He smiled and said thank you to the flight attendants at the door, wished them a nice night, and ambled along the jetway into the terminal. He knew he was moving more slowly than usual but he was moving, that was the main thing, and each step got him nearer to a cab that was going to take him home. He was only fifty-two hours late, which wasn't too bad considering how sick he had been. He was glad he'd had all of Friday, Saturday, and essentially all of Sunday to rest.

He stopped in at the bathroom in the terminal and then kept his head was down as he followed the procession of passengers from a handful of evening flights towards the exit. Sunday night was a busy time for commuter flights. People were coming in to work for the week or returning from a weekend away. There was so much movement across the country all the time, it never stopped, and it happened on a scale far greater than most people throughout history could have ever imagined. Gil wondered if all the people buzzing around him knew how small they really were, in the grand scheme of the world. Did they ever feel how he felt? Maybe not. He was used to that.

Gil only saw the briefest flicker of something familiar in his peripheral vision as he vaguely looked up when he got nearer to the exit, but his head turned and his eyes focused quickly on that familiar figure, and that big, toothy smile. Gil's mouth dropped open as he smiled in return, and he quickened his pace toward Sara as she walked over to him. He was shaking his head before he got to her, because he had told her not to come to get him. It was no more than a ten-minute drive to their apartment, there was no need for her to get in the car and find a car park and pay for parking.

He didn't really care about that, though, because she was there.

"Sara," he said.

"Don't be mad," she began, but he looked at her softly and tried to tell her that he wasn't mad, not even a little bit.

Sara put one hand on his upper arm and the other on his cheek. When he felt her lift his face he realised he had dropped his head again, and he bit his bottom lip.

"How are you?" she asked.

"All right," he said. "Better, but tired," he admitted.

She pressed her lips together seriously and nodded. Her thumb brushed his cheek.

"You look a little tired," she said gently.

Gil knew that was a significant understatement. His body felt heavy but he looked gaunt, it was running on empty, hardly any food. Even his beard suddenly felt and looked overgrown and ragged to him. He looked old, and he felt ashamed for Sara to see him like that. A little tired? Sure.

"Let me take you home," she said. "But first give me a hug."

Gil dropped his bags onto the floor at their feet and slid his arms around Sara's waist as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and back. He was briefly afraid to touch her lest he somehow gave her the virus, but his rational brain knew it had been three days since any symptoms, and he had showered multiple times, he had brushed his teeth just as often, he was in clean clothes, and she didn't seem to be worried. Instead, she held him tightly and rubbed his back in a way that made him feel safe again. It was only a year ago that she had found him preparing to leave San Diego on the boat and she had hugged him in a very similar way. Gil tried to wrap his arms around Sara in the way that he remembered, in the hope that she was remembering too.

She saved his life that day. Every day since that day had been so much better than anything he had been imagining for his future up until that point. She had been so brave. She was still brave.

"I missed you," he whispered into her hair, feeling the soft strands stick to his lips and beard.

"Me too," she said. They slowly separated, and Gil did not object when Sara leant down and hoisted the larger of his two bags onto her shoulder. She was strong, and he would never dare suggest otherwise, and he was grateful for the help, especially now he had a longer walk to the car.

"It's not far," Sara said, as though she read his mind. She kept a comforting hand on his back.

They were quiet on the drive home.

Gil closed his eyes in the car. He didn't know what to say. He hadn't thought that far ahead. He wasn't sure if he even had to say anything, since they had spoken multiple times every day. They had been physically apart but they hadn't been apart in spirit. Sara knew everything. She probably even knew how tired he really felt. His silence was enough of a clue, she was a smart woman.

"Do you want a shower?" she asked as soon as they got back to the apartment and she opened the front door, and Gil trudged in behind her. "To wash the plane and airport off you?"

"I do, actually," he said.

"How much of a biohazard is this bag I'm holding?" she asked as she slid the bag from her shoulder and held it up in the air at her side.

"The bag is fine, I wiped it down with an antibacterial wipe," he said. "Inside it, the suit should probably be dry cleaned this week, to be on the safe side. Everything in the plastic bag needs a hot water wash with something potent, but nothing's soiled, I cleaned up, but only with hotel soap. The old shirt I threw up in is no longer with us, I trashed it."

"Good," she said with a playfully dramatic look on her face. She dropped the bag at her feet and held her hand out for his other bag. "Give me the laptop. Just go and have a shower, get into bed, and I'll heat up some chicken soup."

"Sara-"

"Don't worry, I didn't make it, I'm not about to make you sick for the second time in a week," she said quickly. "Lochie made it and dropped it over this weekend, it's his grandmother's recipe, and he also made a batch without chicken for me which is really very nice. So, go."

Gil sighed and nodded. She looked stern but she was also trying hard not to laugh, and he smiled, feeling a glimmer of amusement. His empty stomach was rumbling loudly, and she heard it. Sara could not have looked more pleased with herself, as Gil went to take a long, hot shower.

"This is good," Gil said half an hour later, once he was sitting in bed in a t-shirt and pyjama pants, beside Sara, both eating soup from matching bowls held carefully in their hands and laps.

"It really is," she agreed after lifting a spoon of warm liquid to her mouth. "I had some last night too. Lochie dropped it over, freshly made. I might have mentioned you were sick to some people at work and that I was a terrible cook and nurse, and look, free food!"

Gil chuckled.

"I didn't know you talked about me at work," he mentioned casually after another minute.

"I don't, or I didn't," she said. "I mentioned you to Sophie after I found out you were sick, I guess my guard was down, and I'm sure they knew I was married because I never take off the ring, but they'd never asked any questions. Maybe they assumed you were an accountant or something! But now they know who you are, and darling, they're your groupies. They've seen your videos."

"Oh God," he groaned.

Sara laughed happily beside him and nudged his arm gently with her nearest elbow.

"They want to meet you. I promised them they could, maybe dinner later next week."

"This soup is a bribe," Gil realised.

"A tasty one, yes," Sara admitted.

Gil admired the self-satisfied smile on her face as she leant over her soup and took another sip, this time scooping up some vegetables. Some of her loose hair fell across her face and obscured his view of her, but that only made her seem more real, more Sara, and suddenly he realised why that was. Her hair wasn't straight. Gil hadn't even noticed at the airport or in the car, but she must not have straightened it since he left. It was curly. And because her hair was much shorter than it had been on the boat by the time they arrived back in San Diego, there were proper curls bouncing around her neck and shoulders again. His heart fluttered in his chest as he watched her intensely.

"I can feel that," Sara whispered seriously without looking up.

"Good," was all he managed to say, in the low bedroom voice he had very little control over.

Sara sucked in a sharp breath but focused on her soup. She knew that voice, and she was determined that they eat and that Gil rest, but suddenly he wanted her. That mouth, her body, her touch, that voice. He tried to stay calm and not to fantasize as he too stared into his bowl of soup.

They needed the recipe for this, he decided as they ate. It was some kind of miracle recovery soup. He hadn't even finished it and he felt a thousand times stronger than he had just an hour ago.

They ate in silence for another ten minutes until they were both finished, and Sara took their bowls back into the kitchen. Gil listened to her run the sink, but she must have only filled the bowls and left them there, because soon she came back to him. She closed the curtains at the window and then walked around the bed and undressed. She took off her shirt and then her pants, in the casual way that they often did. Gil reached for the pyjamas he knew were under her pillow and tossed them in her direction while she unhooked her bra, and she smiled to thank him.

"Nick asked me to stay," she said once she was down to her briefs. She pulled her strappy blue singlet on and adjusted it on her body, then leant forward and stepped into her pyjama pants.

"I'd be surprised if he didn't," Gil replied.

"We had a whole conversation about it," she said on a sigh. She flashed him a look of mild frustration, and Gil smiled tenderly at her. She sat on the edge of the mattress with a bent front leg as she faced him. "I said no," she said.

"I wouldn't stop you," he told her.

"Yes, that was always our problem," Sara reminded him. "Both so eager not to upset the other, I would never stop you, you would never stop me, and in the end we just went our separate ways because neither of us was prepared to tell the other person no. Sound familiar?"

"Vaguely," he said, with a wise flicker of a smirk. "Can I tell you no?"

"Only if I can tell you no, because I know that look and that voice and we are not making love tonight. You're still recovering, you need sleep, and you've barely eaten these past few days."

Gil playfully stuck his tongue out at her and it made her laugh. He loved that sound.

"I'll survive," he assured her.

"Good," she said softly. "Because tomorrow's another matter entirely."

His eyes flew to hers and latched onto the suggestive sparkle and her beautiful smile.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" she asked. "Can you stomach some chocolate?"

He nodded eagerly, and Sara smiled to herself as she jumped off the bed and went back into the kitchen. Gil got under the covers and stretched his legs out as he sat up against his pillows and the headboard. He enjoyed the quietness of the night around them as he listened to Sara humming a happy tune a few metres away, pottering in the kitchen until the water boiled over the stove and the kettle began to whistle. She caught it quickly and soon walked in a mug of tea for him, and a little plate of dark chocolate, and then left to get her own. Gil pulled her side of the covers down for her.

"You always bring me tea when I'm not feeling very well," she said. "It's your turn now."

"Thank you," he said. "I haven't been that sick in a very long time, I had no control over it."

"Nick says it's because our immune systems are crap, thanks to all our time on the boat."

"I can guarantee that even someone exposed to many more viruses than we've been, would be just as likely to be taken down by the dreaded norovirus, it does not discriminate. If anything, we're healthier than that hypothetical person would be as a starting point and may recover with fewer complications. I do feel much better after that soup. You're right, I've barely eaten. I had a microwave in the room though, so I made it to the store on Friday afternoon and found some microwavable packets of white rice, some tomato paste, some tuna. Mixed it all up, heated it up, and that was dinner the past two nights. Chased down with a glass of lukewarm flat lemonade."

"That's disgusting," Sara stated.

Gil shrugged and laughed a bit.

"It is, but it was all I could manage in the state I was in. I've been much hungrier today."

"You already look and sound much brighter," Sara assured him with a tender smile as she looked at his face. "Do you remember Queenstown in New Zealand, when we were both sick?"

"I do," he said softly. "It snowed. We had a fire."

"I've been thinking about that a bit," she admitted. "I know we were sick, but I loved it too."

Gil nodded in agreement. He reached under the sheet and affectionately rubbed her nearest thigh. Her knees were raised and he held his hand to her warm skin and the fabric of her pants.

Sara held his hand there, while her other held her cup of tea. She breathed across the top to cool it down before taking a long sip.

Gil reached back for his cup too without letting go of her hand against her leg.

"It sounds like you and Nick had a good talk while I was gone," he said as casually as possible. "Is everything okay? Did he wait until I was gone to launch into more serious questions? I had thought that Nick asking us if we regretted not having children and pointing out the biological impossibility of it now was serious enough."

"It's not impossible…yet," Sara insisted quietly, in a bit of a huff. She put her cup down and reached for the square of chocolate to nibble on.

"I know," Gil whispered quickly. Maybe in a year, or three or four years, he reasoned. They didn't exactly know, at this point. His thumb swiped across Sara's knuckles as she sighed. Her hand relaxed as they adjusted their grip and dropped their joined hands to the mattress between them.

"Your conversation with Nick?" he prompted again, wanting to take her mind off her body.

If there was one thing Gil had been reminded of that week, it was that any control they thought they had over their bodies was an illusion, and Sara was figuring that out for herself too.

"It wasn't anything he said this time, really," Sara continued. "I think he worries, as though this is all just a midlife crisis for me and one day I'm going to come to my senses and 'settle down', as though we haven't already. I'm not sure he understands how happy we are, or how happy I am."

"Does it matter to you if he understands?"

"It annoys me if he doesn't," Sara said. "If he can't or won't believe me. But I think he wants to understand it, he just doesn't see us enough. I told him a bit about our day-to-day life and I think it's better now. I think he realises it's the same, no matter where we live. Married is married."

"That's very romantic," Gil said, teasing her in a soft voice, just to hear her laugh again.

"I know, right?" she asked, flashing him a grin. "That's me, Little Miss Romance. Nineteen years since we met, and we've finally been married and in each other's company for…one year."

"That is not your fault, and you know it."

"It's a little my fault," she admitted once she finished her chocolate. "But it is mostly yours." She giggled when he sighed and rolled his eyes. She let go of his hand, and he automatically raised his arm to allow her to shuffle closer. Gil rested his arm around her shoulders and he stroked her far arm with gentle fingertips as she cuddled in against him and wrapped an arm around his waist.

"I certainly missed this," Gil whispered against the top of her head. Sara hummed in agreement, content and warm and soft beneath his touch. He put his cup carefully back on the side table and rested his cheek on top of her head. He held her arm around his waist and they just sat together, slumped against their pillows. "Looking forward to the last week of work?" he asked.

"Yes and no," Sara said. "The police are chasing down a list of persons of interest we were able to find, so that's good. I don't think I'll be around to find out who is charged or to answer the why of it all, and one month is just enough time to feel accepted and like I know what I'm doing."

"If you want a few more weeks-"

"I don't though, that's the thing," she said, as she played with a crease in his shirt. "I almost want to leave, especially…because of the type of case this is. I've had some nightmares this week."

Gil said nothing, he just turned his face down to her head and held his lips against her hair.

"I'm already looking forward to coming back, maybe in another year," she said. "But it's enough, you know? It's enough for me because I have so much else. The meetings really went well?"

"Very well, everyone is on board, we just need to keep working on the applications but they all think the proposal is sound and they're very keen to be involved, and word is we've got an excellent chance of success in these next rounds. They want to meet you too, and I promised we would arrange a video call, perhaps later this week if you don't mind we do it from the dining table here. There are some things we didn't get to last week because I was getting sicker by the minute."

"I can probably leave work early a few days this week," Sara said. "I pulled some overtime while you were away. Nick's been turning a blind eye but I might take time in lieu without being ordered to, for once in my life."

Gil smiled and nodded.

"Will you go out to dinner with me tomorrow night?" he asked. "For our wedding anniversary?"

He already had the reservations; he'd made them more than a week ago.

"I asked Nick for advice before I left," Gil continued. "He swears by the food. Smart casual."

"Ah, you've planned something," Sara said with a wise chuckle. "That's very sweet."

"I may have," Gil said as he held her close. "I'm just glad I got back here in time."

"I don't care about the day. Yes I'll go out to dinner with you, but I'm actually just glad you're all right," Sara admitted shyly.

"Sorry if I scared you," Gil whispered as his stomach flip-flopped and his muscles ached.

"It's okay," she said. "I'm sorry I scared you too, when I couldn't get my balance on the boat after reading all that time when I knew I needed glasses, and you had to hold me up to be sick."

"I've had some experience with headaches like that," he promised her with a chuckle.

"I've been wearing my glasses, and they really do help," she mumbled. Gil just nodded.

A wave of fatigue swept over him as they sat in silence a moment longer. His eyelids were heavy and he could feel Sara resting more heavily against him too. Her breathing was slow and deep.

"Honey, I'm going to get ready for bed," he said. He was right; she was half-asleep when he eased himself out from under her. She propped herself up and blinked sleep from her eyes. She took their cups of tea back to the kitchen and turned out those lights while Gil brushed his teeth, and he was waiting for her in bed again as she brushed her own teeth next and used the toilet. "You haven't been straightening your hair," he said when she padded back to bed and turned out the lamp on her side of the bed. She climbed in and rearranged her pillows to sleep and yawned before she replied.

"Not for a few days," she admitted. "Semi-deliberate. I went to straighten it from about Wednesday I think and just thought, 'eh'. Then I washed my hair every day and let it dry naturally and well, here we are." She glanced at him in the dark. "And I know you don't mind," she added.

Gil shook his head. He turned his bedside lamp off and lay down, and he chuffed happily when Sara quickly turned to him in the dark and hugged him. He hadn't slept well without her, he honestly didn't know how he had ever slept without her, and he suspected she hadn't slept very well alone either, judging by the way she was snuggling into him and wrapping her long arms and legs around his body, as though she might never let him go. Their bodies fit together, it felt so natural to be entwined with her, and he felt so loved. Gil found her soft lips in the dark and kissed her. When Sara tried to deepen the kiss but he resisted she held his face and looked him seriously in the eyes.

"Gil, I'm not afraid of you," she said.

From Sara, there was almost no greater compliment. She wasn't just talking about a virus.

"And I'm in love with you," he whispered, before he leant in and kissed her again.