Sara regarded him thoughtfully, saying nothing. Grissom's heart began to pound. She was going to say no, his mind screamed. Involuntarily, he immediately began making contingency plans. What would he do if she said she didn't love him? He couldn't picture them going back to how they had been just a few weeks ago. He couldn't ignore her and he couldn't avoid her.
He was so caught up in this planning that her voice surprised him. "I don't know if I really know what love is, Gris. My whole life has been made up of me thinking I love some guy and then him dumping on me. After the third or so time I got burned, I lost whatever confidence I had in knowing what love is.
"I can tell you that I care for you more, as a person, than anyone else I've ever dated," she continued, avoiding his eyes. "And I can tell you that right now my mind is full of scenes involving me and you ten, twenty, fifty years in the future. And that I don't know what I would do if I lost you." She sighed, finally meeting his eyes. "You tell me, Grissom. Is that love?"
He tried to sound as calm as she did. "I don't know, Sara. I can't tell you that. Love is intuitive, not empirical. You just need to rely on what you feel."
"I don't KNOW what I feel!" Sara could hear the desperation emanating from her own voice. Please, she thought, please don't let him think I'm saying no. "I'm telling you that I don't know. I don't have any intuition, I lost it a long time ago."
"You didn't lose it. You just stopped listening to it. You're the most intuitive CSI I've ever seen, so don't sit there and tell me that you have no intuitive skills, Sara!" Grissom took a deep breath, reminding himself that she hadn't said "no" flat-out. He still had a chance. "Is this – are we – going too fast? Is that what this is about, and you don't feel ready to say it?"
"No, Grissom. You always do this – you always try to distill my problems into one simple issue you think you can fix. It doesn't work like that. It didn't with the hamburger thing, it didn't when you let that suspect insult me, and it doesn't now. Just . . . just realize that you can't know everything about my thoughts, okay? You know me the best of anyone, but when it comes to me and you, you can't see the forest for the trees."
"Then tell me this, Sara. Is 'I don't know' a yes or a no?"
"Consider it an abstention, for god's sake!" she groaned. "Why does this all have to come down to one word, anyway? I'm telling you that I love being with you, and I want to stay with you. Why can't that be good enough for you?"
"Because I've bared myself to you, and you refuse to do the same! How many times have I told you I love you? I keep saying it and saying it, and you're not giving anything in return!"
"Not giving anything?" Sara shouted. "NOT GIVING ANYTHING?? Dammit Grissom, I'm giving you everything I have to give. I'm giving you my freakin' life, here, and you're telling me you think I'm the taker in this relationship?
"Ok, so you tell me you love me. That's great, the word 'love' is pretty. What the hell does that mean to me? It's words, Grissom, not deeds. How much of what you think you're giving to me is just words? Right now I feel like it's all of it. Remember your Macbeth, Gris?"
"'It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury; signifying nothing.' Yes, Sara, I remember. I'm not trying to attack you, you know," Grissom said sadly. "I just wanted to know if you felt the same way about me. Maybe the words are more important to some people than others."
"I can't do that, Grissom. That's what I'm telling you. I can't just be like, 'I love you,' and everything will be wonderful. My life has never worked like that. I told five men before you that I loved them, and look what that got me: rage and no self-confidence except in my ability to do work." She leveled a serious look at him. "Do you understand what I'm saying? I won't say it until . . . until I don't know when. What I can give you, and what I'm offering you now, is everything except those three words."
Grissom felt defeated. "We're coming at this from two different sides of the issue, Sara. Let's try another route. The word 'love' means something to me. To you, 'love' is just a word, an arbitrary collection of sounds. It's not as important as what a person does."
As he said this last sentence, understanding began to really seep into his brain. He'd been looking at it from the wrong perspective. ". . . Like trying to knock you around. I'm . . .that is, I think I understand what you're saying now, Sara." He grasped her hand lightly and stoked his fingers over it. "The word is more than meaningless. It's somehow repugnant to you, isn't it?"
"I guess you could say that. All I know is that in the past when I've said it, I always turned out to be deluded. So I refuse to do it again. Call me superstitious, but I just can't do it. What I've been telling you is that if we eliminate that word, I think that I feel as much for you as you do for me."
He still wanted to hear her say it; that was unavoidable. But once Sara was determined to not do something, the apocalypse couldn't change her mind. "Ok, Sara. I'll take that. I can never get inside your head when it comes to those other men, so I guess I have to just listen to you when you try to tell me something important like this."
Sara smiled tentatively. "What is this? Grissom, my Grissom, admitting that he doesn't know everything? Not taking an opportunity to trivialize something important I say?"
Grissom, know she's dished him up in his own sauce, laughed and shook a fist at her. "Smartass young people. Come on, let's get some breakfast before we go to bed."
