Chapter Three
Disclaimers, header in Chapter One
Notes: Thanks for the comments, guys! You're all way too kind…but I like it! G
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(A few days later…)
She was laughing.
"Admit it, you had no clue."
"I admit nothing. It was only a matter of time before I figured it out. You just anticipated my next move."
"You lie," she countered, her voice full of teasing deliberateness, "and you know it. In fact, all things considered, it was a pitiful display. You're lucky I spoke up when I did."
Grissom breathed noisily, as if the very force of his breath would refute the woman's claims.
"I'm thrilled to see that you have such a healthy ego, but really, Sara. It's not like you went looking for chloroform in those tires. You just stumbled on it in the test results--total dumb luck. To hear you tell it, you laid hands on the rubber and it spoke to you."
"Well, it sure wasn't speaking to you."
He comforted himself with the thought that his eyes would have burned her to a crisp by now if she were standing in front of him. As it was, he would have to settle for fiber-optic incineration.
"At least I knew what pissing up a rope was."
"No Cracker Jack prize there," she replied, batting his comeback away with ease. "You are a guy."
That was…hard to refute. He decided a minor distraction was in order.
"So, what did you think of Greg's first field trip?" Her opinion on this point did interest him, perhaps more than it should.
"Well, I guess he did as well as could be expected. Especially since he hasn't been trained for it, you know? But he seemed pretty bummed by the time we got to the lab." She settled deeper into the cushions of her couch. "I felt bad for him."
Grissom had as well, and his curious question to Greg about whether he enjoyed his outing had been genuine. There was a definite limit to his open-mindedness where Greg was concerned, though. He knew quite well that the next time he turned his back, Sanders would be panting all over Sara again whether Grissom made nice with him or not. The boy was just annoying that way. "I'm sure he'll survive."
"I can't blame him for being freaked out. That was a terrible scene." She grew quiet, her eyes focusing on nothing in particular. "So many bodies."
"Yeah."
She exhaled softly, and forced her head back against the cushions. "I don't know what's worse: to have been seriously injured right away, which means that you don't remember the bus flipping over itself and crashing, or to have escaped with scrapes and bruises…which means that you were fully conscious the whole time. Listening to all everyone's screams and the chaos…and then listening to your own."
She had spoken in a rhythmic undertone, her voice so husky it felt like a dream. Later, he told himself that he had responded to that sound and its strangely vaporous intimacy, rather than to the actual question her words implied. As he did so, he found himself mesmerized by the bright black and gold stain of the butterfly in the exact center of the display before him.
"You remember the scene this morning, when you and Warrick were up on the road and I was down with the clean up team?" He paused, retracing his impressions. "I was in the middle of telling those guys what parts of the bus we needed to move to the lab when out of nowhere, I noticed this woman standing off by herself. She had her back to me and she seemed to be staring at the spot where the bodies were clustered together on the ground last night. My first thought was that she was one of those tragedy junkies who insist on coming to the places where some poor soul has lost their life. So I walked over and told her that she had to leave. It took her a second to react; I almost thought she hadn't heard me. But then she turned around. I should have been able to tell from her body language and the way she held herself--her face was bruised and cut, and her arm was in a sling."
"It was obvious that she had been on the bus, but she said it anyway. She looked lost and bewildered, and just undone, I guess. And I…just…stood there watching her, and I thought, why are you here? Even after I realized that I had seen her the night before when I first walked past the bodies—hunched over one of the black bags, crying over the head of some young man, even after remembering that terrible moment in her life because I had seen it for myself, I didn't think. Not about the fact that she was upset and probably needed to talk, or that she might still be physically shaky from the crash and should be back in a hospital. I didn't think at all; I just said the first thing that came to mind. "Why are you here?"
Sara felt her face shape itself into a hesitant frown. "What did she say?"
What touched his lips might have passed for a smile, if it had held any mirth. "…Nothing. She just looked at me for a long second like…like I was some machine who had come to life just to…refuse her."
In the silence, the deep stillness of his house settled over him like low-lying fog. He closed his eyes and rubbed them roughly. Exhaustion could not be his excuse; there were things that she simply did not need to hear. He knew that better than anyone. Besides, the last thing he wanted was her pity. It was a useless emotion—sometimes, it reflected well on the person who felt it, but rarely did it do so for the person receiving it. Or, he reflected, the person demanding it by airing some ostentatious self-criticism aloud. Most decent people felt a natural sympathy for anyone who would bare their soul in such a way; Sara was more than decent. He pressed his fingertips in the hollows around his eyes, and gritted his teeth. This was not the conversation he had hoped to have with her.
He started to change the subject, but then she spoke.
"Is that how you see yourself?"
"Is what how I see myself?"
"As a machine," she said softly. "Some pre-programmed block of blankness. Garbage in, garbage out. Reduced to saying the first rote thing that comes to mind, no matter what the disaster."
It sounded much colder coming from her, and infinitely sadder.
"I don't know what you mean."
"I think you do."
A jolting shiver passed through his body like a wave, rising all the way up to the roots of his hair.
"I was just using dramatic language to make a point."
Don't even try that with me, she warned silently.
"And what point is that, Grissom?"
He closed his eyes again, and ran his hand over his face.
"That…traumatic events have a powerful effect on people. That woman had been caught up in something terrible and she simply couldn't process it." Plausible enough, he supposed.
"Impressive analysis. The first part more than the second, though."
He recognized the inflection; she wasn't quite done.
"I didn't mean it, you know." She made the words and her voice as softly appealing as she could, knowing that was all he would have to go by. "I was hurt and upset, and I came in looking for you to say something to me that …you weren't prepared to say. But I'm not in your head, or in your heart, and so I should never have said something so …total." Softer still. "I know you feel things."
It never failed; she never failed. There had been only one other person who had ever willingly taken on his problems and made them her own, and that had been scripted by blood. It frightened him to see how easily Sara could do that too, especially when it was the last thing he deserved.
"Sara."
"Yes?"
"You never have to apologize to me."
"I know," she said, sounding very young to him. "I just wanted to."
A ghost of a smile flitted across his face. He drew a deep breath. When the exhalation came, he visualized it pushing everything away but her.
"So, I will see you tomorrow?"
"Well, I'm a woman who loves her work, so yes," she smiled sweetly, "you will."
She heard a rustling of whispered breath that she decided was a tiny chuckle.
"Tomorrow, then."
"Yes."
*******
The sound currently assaulting his ears was actually less deafening that he would have predicted. Surprising, given that the bus chassis held a noisy 350 Hp engine. Grissom didn't really know how long it would take before the expected reaction occurred, but knowing that was less important than confirming that the application of chloroform was the originating action. Chloroform would destabilize the rubber, the tire would blow, the low-grade bolts would shear and cause the rod iron to fall, and finally, the driver would lose control of the wheel, overcorrect and compound the looming disaster. That was theory, but this old fashioned experiment would be proof.
As he shifted his weight forward onto the leg he had propped on top of a crate, he caught a glimpse of the gray felt case into which he had packed the chessboard lying near his foot and frowned. Warrick. Checkmate. "Sara…she needs me." Grissom exhaled audibly, trying to drown the memory within the tunnel of sound created by the revving engine, but failing miserably. What galled him most was the way Warrick had actually swaggered away afterward. Though Grissom hated to admit it, the whole performance had been worthy of the younger man's coolness and suavity. Two words that will never apply to me, the resident gray-haired lump in the room, Grissom noted wryly. Just a silly, throwaway line, nothing to worry about. Sara would probably laugh if he ever brought it up…which was more than she would do if he kept making an ass of himself whenever she picked up the phone. What a load of nonsense he had said to her. Everything had been fine, she was giving him a hard time as usual, making him smile, and then…he just stepped right into it. She probably thinks I was feeling sorry for myself, or worse, that I have "issues." Just the impression I wanted to leave, too, he thought, shaking his head. Just great.
It wasn't until Grissom saw Nick turn slightly that he realized he had completely forgotten that the man was standing right beside him. Grissom looked back, puzzled by not having heard anything himself, following the direction of Nick's eyes. She was striding purposefully towards them, Catherine in tow, wearing something red. An outfit he'd never seen before, or at least not as one complete look. Afraid to be caught staring, he turned back to the bus. Just morning after jitters, he told himself soothingly--except for the curious fact that nothing as simple as sex had taken place. The phone thing was turning out to be rather like a Trojan horse. He would never have said what he did if he could actually see her assessing him with those eyes, he was sure. But he had not steeled himself adequately against her voice. Its effect had caught him off guard, and made him linger on thoughts best kept to himself. He should have just asked her on the damn date, apparently. But no, I had to start…talking. He shook his head. The rule still held: nothing related to Sara was ever simple.
He felt a rustling in the air to his left. Without turning around, he knew that she was there next to him; she could always be counted on to find her way to his side. A strange burning sensation in his chest, tinged with both pleasure and pain, began to slowly radiate outward to the rest of his body.
"Hey," she said, smiling, confident.
He opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it. That voice. He twisted around and caught her eyes with his. He felt a fool, but happily so.
"Hey."
Although they both would have denied it, they leaned a tad closer, as if the floor had shifted mysteriously beneath their feet of its own accord. A slight loss of balance, he reassured himself hastily. Nothing more. Her smile deepened as his eyes wandered down from her mouth to the bare skin at the hollow of her neck, and finally to the V-shaped area exposed by her shirt and framed by the red collar points of her jacket. Just then, he heard the motor kick into higher gear, whirring insistently with its loud metallic whine. He turned back to watch, as did she. It wouldn't be long now.
"Cool."
*******
tbc…