Chapter Three
The hospital had a musty, medicinal smell that was quite different than the sickly sweet odor that Sara came to associate the crime lab with. The doctor talked to her as they walked. "Like I said before, there will be some swelling. We will know in a couple of hours how successful this surgery was, when he wakes up. But I am confident that all will be well and your boyfriend will have his hearing back." Sara blushed and said, "Oh. Grissom's not my boyfriend." The doctor gave her a strange look and said, "Well maybe not yet. Oh, here we are." They had reached Grissom's room and with that the doctor left her to continue making rounds with the rest of his patients.
When she looked inside Grissom's room, she saw about five machines attached to him. Usually Grissom had this presence that seemed to fill up the room, but he looked so small on the hospital bed, his face so swollen, that it scared Sara a little. She took a deep breath and walked inside. When she closed the door and sat down on a stool next to him, she touched his hand and noticed the IV that was attached to him. His eyelids fluttered. She could see the IV drip into the line that she knew went into his veins. She kissed that site once. Her lips tingled. 'His hand is warm,' she thought. She let go of his hand and slowly placed it on the hospital bed. As she did this, she examined his fingers in silence. The cleanliness of them, the strength he possessed in them, his thundering velvet hand. These were his instruments, they helped solve crimes and bring justice to the city of Las Vegas. But he would be the same man he is now without them, right? 'They are only a part of what makes this man who he is,' she thought. 'Just like his hearing, they are only a small part of him.' Satisfied, she smiled at the thought that everything was really going to be fine because he has that part of him back again. Her eyes drifted around the room, outside to the hospital staff saving lives. She grew tired of this and soon her eyes fell back to Grissom in the bed beside her. Through years of working with him, she had memorized the way his curly peppered brown hair fell, the color of his eyelashes and the smell of his skin. But this comfortable close proximity to him made her smile and her heart was glad. Content and safe in his presence, she soon fell asleep, her body leaning slightly over his.
She awoke. 'I wonder how long I have been asleep.' Her neck was sore from sleeping in the chair and she rubbed a sore part of her back. She stood up, walked over to the window and sighed. It had been raining all morning. She could see traffic coming in and out of the Las Vegas County Medical Center. People in wheelchairs, old men with walkers, being helped to their cars, new mothers with their babies. Sara smiled. She turned back around to find Grissom grinning at her. Pleasantly surprised and relieved, she briefly wondered how long she had been standing there and how long Grissom had been watching her. She smiled at this thought. He continued to smile back. Sara wasn't sure what she should do at that point and so she walked over to his bed and asked, "Do you want me to get the doctor?" Grissom's face looked puzzled and confused. She repeated herself. 'He must not of heard me,' she thought. She asked again, "Do you want me to get the doctor?" Grissom could see her lips move but the medicine made it hard for him to focus on them. He turned pale. Sara's heart began pounding in her chest. Her face fell as she realized something…Grissom couldn't hear her.
