TITLE: One
AUTHOR: Minttown1/Amber
RATING: PG
CATEGORY: Angst, Vignette
SPOILERS: Burden of Proof
SUMMARY: Sara's last night before departing for her leave of absence.
ARCHIVAL: Sure, just let me know.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, never will be. I just can't sleep. Also, this might be a little overdone, but it's short, so you might as well read it. You may even enjoy it.
~*~*~*~*~
Sara brushed the insistent tears from her face and finished stacking the last of her books inside one of her packing crates. She noted with a touch of irony that Grissom was right. They were almost exclusively about forensics.
All the shelves in the room were empty now, but one spot really grabbed her notice. Where the plant had been. The plant that Grissom somehow thought would make her stay. The plant had not solved the problem though. The plant had not made her love him any less.
He had granted her the leave of absence she originally requested. She was thankful, because she did not want to quit. She just wanted some time to forget she loved him. God help her, she loved him.
Their last conversation that morning had been interesting, albeit short. Sitting in his office, on the pretext that she was waiting for him to finish writing her letters of recommendation. She knew she was waiting for him to do something to make her reconsider her plans.
"I can't convince you to stay?" he had asked, refusing to take his eyes off the computer screen in front of him.
You could, she had thought. Her verbal answer, however, was simply, "No."
"I know you're leaving because of me." She looked up suddenly, shocked. Did he know? "But I really have been working on the respect issue, Sara," he continued.
He was still that oblivious, she realized then. He had been getting better at respecting her as an individual since his attention had been drawn to it, but he still did not realize the real reason why she was leaving. "I know, Grissom," she had responded, "and it probably saved our friendship. It means a lot to me." She did not know herself whether she was referring to his effort or the friendship, but both were important to her.
"It means a lot to me, too," he had told her as he signed the letters he had just printed. She held her breath, waiting for him to say something else, but all he had left to offer her were wishes of luck and the assurance that she would still have her position there if she decided to stay. She had said goodbye, feeling mercifully numb.
She was not feeling numb now. She was alone in an almost empty apartment, she regretted dropping her plant off at a local hospital that morning, and she was leaving the few people in the world outside of her family with whom she had established any connections. She sat down on one of the closed crates already in the room, hugging herself tightly, and allowed the tears to fall without restraint.
She jumped when she heard a knock on the door. She stood and answered it. "Grissom?"
"Can I come in?" He looked uncomfortable.
"Yeah." She let him in then wiped her eyes again as she closed the door. "What are you doing here?"
"I wanted to talk to you, and your phone is already disconnected." He was looking around too much. It was making her nervous.
"What do you want to talk to me about?" she asked when he failed to continue.
"Where's your plant?" he asked, ignoring her question.
"I know you did not come here to talk about the damn plant, Grissom," she said slowly. The exhaustion and emotion had been catching up with her. "Now, what do you want?"
"I want you to stay."
"It's too late to do this," she said. Neither of them knew whether she was referring to the late hour or to the fact that all the arrangements had already been made for her to leave.
"Why?"
"Because we're not the same, Grissom." She sighed. "It's too late, we're too different, and I'm done going without."
He looked confused. "What does that have to do with you leaving?" She started to cry again. She hated herself.
"Please leave," she said after a few minutes.
"You want me to leave?" he asked disbelievingly.
She looked at his face. After all this, he still did not seem to understand. Either that, or he was choosing to hurt her. "You don't need to. I already am."