Author: Jeanine (jeanine@iol.ie)
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sara/Lockwood, with hints of Sara/Grissom, Sara/Hank
Spoilers: Pretty much everything; episode tie ins are noted where needed.
Summary: Sara finds the greatest miracle of all, right where she least expects it
Feedback: Really does make my day; flames will be checked for spelling and grammar and mocked in my livejournal.
Archive: At my site, Checkmate, Fanfiction.net, anywhere else, please ask first
Notes: Anyone you recognise belongs to Anthony Zuiker and the good folks at CBS; anyone you don't recognise is more than likely mine. Huge chunks of dialogue are taken from the show, thanks to the scripts at Intrepid's Site, the notable exception being a scene from Play With Fire, which, for reasons that will become obvious, was completely re-written by me. Everything else, I've tried to stay within canon for. Special thanks to Bekki for the tape trade, and Heidi who sent the eps that wouldn't wait and listened to be moan and whinge for the better part of four months as this fic grew completely out of my control. She got it bad, but Bronagh got it worse, and then she had to beta read it for me as a reward…you rock, you know that? The title belongs to Billy Joel, as does the song that's used in the middle somewhere.
Part One - Analysis
(Let the Seller Beware)
It was a short drive from the Newman residence to Tuscadero High School, only a few miles. Yet for every one of those miles, Sara Sidle cursed Gil Grissom with all the swear words that she'd ever picked up in her lifetime, all the non-swear-but-still-pretty-vile words she'd ever heard too, and for good measure, even made up a few new ones.
This was, after all, supposed to be her day off. Not that she minded being paged per se, after all, she'd worked on her day off before, and she never complained about it, apart from that one time that she'd been all but falling asleep in the lab. She did her job, did it well, put in all the overtime that was asked of her and more. She'd be known to drop everything, just because Grissom called her up and asked her to help him.
Everything, including her job, her home and her life in San Francisco, all because Gil Grissom dialled her number, sounding as stressed as she'd ever heard him sound, and uttered those three little words. "I need you."
She'd been on the next plane.
She'd told herself that she'd gone because she liked a challenge, and because she wanted to help out a friend. She'd told herself that she'd stayed because she wanted to make a change in her life, that she wanted to explore new places, new opportunities. She'd grown up around the Bay Area, moved away for college before returning home; a stint in a whole new city would do her the world of good, and working at the number two crime lab in the country wouldn't hurt either.
She told herself all those things, but she'd known, way deep down in her heart, with that little voice that she tried to ignore, that none of those were the real reason that she'd picked up sticks and relocated her life. The real reason was the voice on the other end of the phone, the words that he'd said, and the fact that she'd had something of a crush on him ever since she'd met him at that forensics seminar.
She'd lied to herself then as well, telling herself that she was only interested in learning more about forensics and entomology, that she didn't meet too many people who had the same level of interest in the former as she did, and that she knew very little about the latter and wouldn't mind learning more. That was why she'd gone to him after the seminar, telling him that there was a point she wanted further clarification on, wondering if they could discuss it over coffee. He'd blinked once, then twice before agreeing, and she'd wondered what she'd let herself in for. But he came out with her, and coffee turned to dinner, which turned into dinner the next night before he had to fly back to Vegas. They exchanged email addresses and phone numbers, and thus began a correspondence between the two of them that forged a friendship that bridged the gap of mentor and student.
She's still not sure when that friendship turned into a crush, or when that crush turned into something deeper, but she suspects that the latter happened at some point during her first few months in Vegas, possibly when they sat outside for hours, watching bugs nesting on a badly decomposing pig, or maybe when they were discussing the Mile High Club in an aeroplane bathroom. She doesn't remember the exact moment she remembered that she'd fallen in love with him, but she remembers the exact moment that she realised that things were never going to change between them, that he'd never return her feelings.
They were standing in the lab and he'd excluded her from an investigation that he was doing, not telling her what it was about, what relationship it had to the case, not even when she'd referred to a similar experiment she'd done in San Francisco. She'd tried to tell herself that she was being silly, that it was just Grissom being Grissom, and she was just about succeeding. Until he told her to clean up the ground beef that he'd left behind.
She'd been working with him for a year and a half, they'd had untold meals together, and he'd never known that she was a vegetarian. They'd spent all that time together, she'd thought that they'd been working towards something, and it was brought to her attention, with stunning clarity, that he'd never seen her. Not like that.
She'd filed her request for a leave of absence pretty soon after that, but even that hadn't got through to him. She'd stood in his office, watched him reduce everything to a petty little quirk, little realising that it was symptomatic of a far larger problem. She wanted him, yes, she couldn't deny that. But more than that, she wanted his respect, wanted him to look at her and see her, and if she wasn't going to get that, then she really didn't want to go through every day knowing what she was missing and having it thrown in her face. She wasn't happy with the decision, but she'd made it.
That's when things had really got confusing.
He sent her a plant.
She'd scratched her head over that one, wondering what the hell had gotten into him. The card was no help, "From Grissom" written in a hand not his own, and he'd never mentioned it to her, nor she to him. She'd accepted it for what it was, an apology, and she'd gone for a long walk, calmed herself down and convinced herself that she'd over-reacted before. That she could work with Grissom, that she'd get over her feelings for him, that she was fine with the two of them just working together. She'd ripped up her leave of absence form, and tried not to feel awkward around him, though she's not sure how much she succeeded. She remembers on that first case after that, sitting in a hockey arena with him, trying to act normal, trying not to read anything into the fact that he'd sent her a plant, because after all, it wasn't as if it was a dozen red roses. He still didn't see her as a woman, just as a colleague, and she was fine with that she told herself.
She'd half wanted to bite her tongue off when he'd said that his favourite sport was baseball, and she'd observed that it figured that he'd love it, what with all those statistics and all. She'd heard the bitterness in her own voice, but Grissom appeared not to, saying merely that baseball was a beautiful sport.
She'd really wanted to bite her tongue off when she'd heard her own reply, more than a little caustic. "Since when have you been interested in beauty?"
She'd stopped thinking about biting her tongue and concentrated on picking her jaw up off the floor when she heard his reply. "Since I met you."
Of all the things that she'd ever expected him to say, that threw her for a loop, and by the time she was able to think clearly, he was heading towards the ice, ready to begin work.
She'd let herself believe, for just a moment, that things might be changing between them. Surprise of surprises though, Grissom had gone on about his business as if nothing had ever happened, and she'd been left wondering if she'd imagined things.
It was around then that Hank had come into her life again.
It had been work-related, unsurprisingly enough. He'd been one of the paramedics who had responded to Warrick's call when Nick had been thrown out of a window by Nigel Crane. He'd found her in the hospital, recognising both Nick and Warrick from cases they'd worked together before, and he'd taken her down to the cafeteria for coffee, trying to allay her fears, telling her that Nick was going to be fine.
Then he'd asked her out again.
She'd dithered uncharacteristically over whether to accept his invitation, stalling him with the excuse of work. He'd accepted it happily, telling her that he'd call her in a couple of days to reschedule, giving her time to run it through in her own head. She knew that it probably wasn't fair to date him when she was hung up on Grissom, but she was also slowly but surely coming to accept that if something was going to happen with her and Grissom, it would have happened by now. Besides, Hank was a nice guy, and she'd felt a spark between them that first time that they'd met. She'd literally smelled like death, and while his stomach hadn't been able to take it that well, he'd still found her a few days later, bringing her out for coffee, asking her for her number, giving her his. She hadn't called him though, not for a long time, and when she finally did take the plunge and asked him out, he'd sounded surprised to hear from her. Surprised, but happy.
Which was about how she summed up her feelings about their first date - their first first date that is, not the one post-Nigel Crane. Happy because it did go well, that she'd enjoyed herself, surprised for the same reason. Having Catherine drop a severed finger on to the table in front of them had been a bit of a downer, to put it mildly, but Hank had handled it well, understanding when she had to go to the lab straight away, calling her every now and again, keeping in touch, but not asking her out, not until that day in the hospital.
Once Nigel Crane had been caught, he'd called her again, and this time, it had been she who asked him out, and they'd moved into what could only be described as a very slow-moving drift into more than friends, but not quite a serious relationship. Their crazy work schedules made it hard for them to get together sometimes, so despite the fact that Greg, Warrick and Nick were all perfectly happy to call Hank her boyfriend, even to heckle Sara about it, she was more reticent. She told herself that they were taking things slowly, that she didn't want to go too far too fast, and tried to forget that for two years, she'd been more than halfway in love with her boss.
She was doing fine with it until Philip Gerard showed up.
Grissom hadn't know about Hank, of that she was absolutely certain, and if she hadn't been, the look on his face when Gerard brought up the matter would have cinched it. She'd launched into a denial that had sounded hollow even to her own ears, knowing that she could have just handed Gerard and his team an ace in the hole. She'd felt bad about that, but it was nowhere near as bad as she'd felt when Marjorie Wescott brought it up on the stand. She'd kept her game face on though, handled it well she thought, only to be completely blindsided when Wescott brought up her relationship with Grissom. "Just how far will Ms. Sidle go on the evidence to please her boss, Gil Grissom, whether he returns her attentions or not?" she'd said, and Sara had been torn between wanting to rip Wescott's and Gerard's heads off, and dying of mortification on the spot.
She'd contented herself with the knowledge that no-one from CSI had been there to hear that, and ignored the memory that Wescott had unwittingly evoked in her. Her and Grissom, standing close, the night air cool around them, scent of flowers in the air, and Grissom's cheek, the skin soft under her hand. The look in his eyes, the quickening pace of her heart, the sure and certain knowledge that something had passed between them in that split second, something fleeting and ephemeral as the morning dew.
She'd pushed the memories back ruthlessly, remembering instead Grissom's words to her before she'd left for court, that she deserved to have a life. She knew what he was doing, even if he didn't. He was cutting her loose, setting her free, telling her in not so many words that she shouldn't wait around for him.
She'd realised that herself a long time ago, but the realisation still stung a little.
Not as much though, as what had happened today. It had been her day off, and as per Grissom's wish, she fully intended to get on with her life. Hank had asked her out, she'd accepted, and he'd driven them up to a vineyard in Pahrump. They'd been having a nice time, had just finished dinner and were contemplating dessert when her pager had gone off. She'd known right then and there that it couldn't be good news, had hardly even had to look down to see the words "Come in. Grissom." To his credit, Hank had taken the news well, simply standing up and saying with a shrug and a smile, "I should've known it was too good to be true." She'd apologised profusely, blamed Grissom, and he'd waved a hand, telling her that he understood.
For some reason, even as they began the drive back to Vegas, that had made her smile, because she knew that not many men would be so understanding.
She'd kept smiling until she actually saw Grissom, and even then her first words had been an apology for not getting there sooner. His attitude when he'd pointed out how long it had been since he'd paged her had thrown her off her game, maybe that was why she'd reminded him of his words to her, him telling her to get a life. She was even more thrown when he looked at her guilelessly, with the words, "Did I?" He wasn't acting either, it was clear to her that he really didn't remember that he'd said that to her, and the fact that once again he'd managed to pierce her with such an off-the-cuff comment made her face freeze. Him telling her that she w as working solo, his manner brusque, his tone dismissive was the icing on the cake though, because this wasn't the Grissom that Sara was used to working with, and she realised with a start that she didn't really want to get to know this Grissom. She'd stood for a second, looking down at him, waiting for him to say something, anything, to let her know that they were ok.
Instead he'd just looked at her, putting on his goggles, a reminder that her presence there was disturbing his work. Frustrated, she'd turned away before she said something that she'd regret, giving Nick an exasperated look as she walked by him, his consternation at her being allowed to work solo only adding to her bad mood.
Was it her fault that she'd been out of town when she was paged? Was it her fault that she was out getting herself a life instead of sitting beside the police scanner? That she'd had to go to her place first to pick up her car, to the lab to pick up her kit? Was it her fault that Grissom was acting like an ass?
Hence the turning blue of the air in her car on the way to the high school, and the use of language that would have even her rather permissive parents washing her mouth out with soap. Pulling into the parking lot, she'd taken a minute to pull herself together before getting out of the car, grabbing her kit and making her way towards the football field. She wasn't sure who the detective assigned to the case was, but she soon found out, flashing a grin at the tall dark-skinned man as he turned towards her. She'd met Detective Lockwood a few times, had worked cases with him and Nick once or twice, but she'd never worked solo with him before, didn't know that much about him. She did know that Nick had worked with him on numerous occasions and thought very highly of him, which was a big plus for him in her book.
"CSI Sidle," he greeted her with a nod. "You on your own?"
"Yep," she said, returning his nod, adding another one of his own when he stretched out his hand in invitation, indicating that they should get started. "And Sara's fine, by the way."
"Cyrus," he told her, looking down at the ground as they made their way to the bleachers and down. "Watch your step," he told her unnecessarily. The remnants of sundry fast food products and their wrappings littered the stands, leading to only one conclusion.
"There was a game here?" she asked, stepping over something that could have once upon a time been a hamburger, her stomach roiling in protest at the sight.
"That's not where the action is," he told her. "Though frankly, I wish it were." They were at the end of the steps by now, and she looked at him curiously. "You have dinner yet?" he asked her, and while she was surprised by the query, she answered it.
"Yeah. Why?"
He didn't pull any punches with his reply. "You might be seeing it again. Mandy Kirk. Seventeen."
"Seventeen," Sara murmured, shocked as ever at the waste of such a young life.
"Senior," Cyrus continued. "Janitor found her."
As they reached the end of the field, Sara greeted David Philips, who was crouched over the body of a young girl. Looking down, Sara could just about make out what had begun life as a cheerleader's uniform, the crimson and white of the school colours stained with the crimson of the girl's blood, and she understood Lockwood's comment about dinner. "Eviscerated," she murmured, more to herself than the two men. Cyrus suggested something about a mountain lion, David concurring on the possibility, but Sara was already reaching out with her tweezers, pulling out a piece of ribbon from the wounds in the girl's abdomen. "It's a cheerleader," she murmured. "She had to have good lungs. How come nobody heard her scream?"
The two men had no answer to that, and she was only dimly aware of Cyrus straightening up. "I have to go talk to the family," he said. "You two will be ok here?"
Both Sara and David looked up. "I'm almost done," David said.
Sara meanwhile, was casting an eye over the football field. "Big crime scene," she said dryly. "I'll keep busy."
Even with what they'd just seen, Cyrus's lips quirked up in a quick smile, one that vanished as soon as his eyes drifted back to Amanda Kirk's body. "I'm sure you will. I'll call you if I find out anything. Keep me updated."
"Sure," Sara replied, turning her attention back to the body and David. "Let's get to work."
***
There was no need for this, she told herself as she walked, at the same time as she told herself that there was no harm in it. There was nothing wrong with taking the long way from the locker room to the car park, the long way taking her past Grissom's office. After all, she'd hardly seen him since that unpleasant conversation at the Newmans' pool.
She just wanted to check in with him, say hi.
See if she could sort out the rather confusing jumble of thoughts going around in her head about the various men that she'd been interacting with during this case.
She'd been with Hank when the page had come in, and she'd hated to turn around and tell him that she had to go back to Vegas, in part because she was enjoying herself, and she didn't really want to leave, and in part because she was afraid that it would lead to a fight. The opposite had been true in fact; just like he'd been on their very first date when Catherine had put a severed finger on the table in front of them, he'd understood that she had to go to the lab, had taken it better than she'd ever imagined. He'd told her to call him when she was free again, and he'd actually called her in the middle of the case to check if she was free for dinner. Unfortunately, she'd been in the middle of, as Greg had put it, "driving someone else's porcelain bus" and thus hadn't been too keen on dinner, but it had meant a lot to her to know that he wasn't holding a grudge, unlike some people.
She'd spent a fair amount of time with Greg during this case as well, and the fact that the young lab tech had more than a passing interest in her relationship with Hank notwithstanding, she always enjoyed their conversations. Greg's ebullient nature and natural flirtiness never failed to bring a smile to Sara's face, and when she was sifting through someone else's stomach contents, that took some doing. She'd never had a little brother, but she imagined that that was what her relationship with Greg most resembled, the banter, the laughter, and the competition for the last word. Most of the time, Greg won that particular contest, but she'd pulled off a win when she'd got an answer on DNA out of him, but he hadn't got an answer on Hank out of her, and she just knew he was itching to get her back on it again. There was the occasional something like that in her relationship with Grissom, the banter, the flirting, but it was never that light-hearted, that uncomplicated.
But the person that she'd spent most time with over the last couple of days, the person who had really surprised her, was Cyrus Lockwood. She hadn't known him that well prior to this; usually when she'd worked with him she'd been paired with Nick, and the two of them were such good friends that she'd spent half the time feeling like a third wheel. This had been the first case she'd worked with him solo, and she had to admit that she wouldn't mind doing it again. Not only was he was a first rate detective, but he kept her informed about what he was doing, kept in touch with her too so that there would be no surprises. He was a quick thinker too, she'd found that out when they'd been in Chuck Darwell's hospital room, and he'd seen the nurse with the bag of stomach contents.
"Anything he throws up no longer belongs to him," he'd told Chuck's father, adding, "PD, public domain." His face hadn't betrayed any measure of disgust as he handed the bag to Sara, for which she gave him credit, and when they were walking back out to the car, she discovered that he had a sense of humour as well.
"Some men give candy and flowers," she'd observed dryly, forgetting for a second that Nick wasn't around to act as a buffer for the joke, and when she'd realised, she'd wondered how he'd react to it.
She needn't have worried though, because he'd just looked down at her out of the corner of his eyes, his tone matching hers. "I like to be different," he'd told her, and she'd grinned at him, before changing the subject back to the case at hand and what they might do if they found out that Chuck was involved, or if he wasn't.
He'd been sympathetic to Nicole Exmoor when he'd cuffed her as well, and Sara had been able to see in his face that he was as shaken by what they'd found out as she was. He'd cuffed the sobbing girl gently, telling her that he was arresting her for Mandy Kirk's murder, and they'd stood side by side for a moment as they'd watched her be led away.
In the bright daylight afterwards, he'd walked her to her car, telling her that he'd be in touch with her about the report, double-checking that she was ok to get back to CSI, and she'd acted like she was fine, telling him that she'd talk to him later. But she couldn't help noting that he was almost a complete stranger to her, and yet he was acting with more concern than her boss, someone she considered a close friend.
And then it hit her, somewhere between Tuscadero High School and North Trop Boulevard - when did she start comparing every man in her life to Gil Grissom?
Even after he'd been off with her at the Newman place, even when she was pissed as hell at him, why was he still the one that she seemed to spend her time thinking about? Even when she'd been avoiding him during this case, even when she was pretty sure that he was avoiding her too? The rational part of her mind told her that that thought was being ridiculous, that there had been any amount of times that she'd been working on a case that she and Grissom hadn't talked to one another, had missed one another like ships passing in the night.
There was no reason that this was any different.
Except that somehow, it was.
She didn't know if it was because she was with Hank, or because she used to have a thing for Grissom. She didn't know if it was because she still had a crush on him, or because it was something more than that. She didn't know if it was just because he was her mentor, her boss, or something more than that. All she knew was that she hated being on the outs with him, hated the way that it made her feel.
Almost as much as she hated going to him like this, feeling as if she was some pathetic little girl, grovelling for his attention.
But she was at his office door now, and he was sitting at his desk, looking through some papers. He didn't hear her approaching, didn't know that she was there, so she could just look at him for a few seconds, pretend to herself that things were normal between them, that there was nothing amiss.
"Good night," she called out, seizing on the moment of normalcy, hoping that the gesture, the smile that went with it, would dispel any ill feeling that might be hanging around the room.
"Good night Sara," he replied, but nothing else. Nodding, Sara turned to leave, but she stopped when she heard his voice. "Nice work on the high school case."
He nodded twice as she met his eyes, and she didn't say anything for a moment. She knew that this was Grissom's version of an apology, that it was the most she was going to get, and she was more than happy to accept it. Still though, she couldn't silence a little voice in her mind that pointed out how all he had to do was say those few words, give her just a little hint of praise, for her to forgive him anything.
Doing her best to ignore said voice, she took a deep breath, saying words that had been on her mind since the last time she'd talked to him. "I'm…uh…sorry I missed your page."
He looked surprised as he looked up at her, either at her words or because she hadn't accepted his words as the dismissal she'd rather suspected they were. There was nothing she could do about the latter, but as for the former, she was telling him the truth.
She was sorry that she'd been delayed in answering him, was sorry for the result of it, the bad feeling between them.
But she wasn't so sure that she was sorry for what she was doing. After all, Hank was a nice guy, and Grissom had told her to get herself a life, had told her that she deserved one.
There was no reason that she couldn't have both, was there?
"It's just, um ..." She wanted to explain how she felt, what she was thinking, but it was hard to put the thoughts into words when he was looking up at her like that. "You tell me to get a life and then I get one, and then you expect me to be there at a moment's notice. It's ... um ... confusing."
She stopped then, unsure of how to go on, sure that if she said anything else, or if he did, that she was going to tell him just how she felt about him, or worse, that the tears she could feel rising in the back of her throat would spill out. He glanced down at his desk, evidently fighting for words himself, and she took the opportunity to move away, not wanting to know what, if anything, he was going to say.
There were some things, she told herself, that she really was better off not knowing.
She made it to the door of the lab before a familiar voice called her name, and surprised, she turned to find herself looking at Hank's smiling face as he came towards her. Slightly taken aback at the sight, she felt a smile creeping across her face. "What are you doing here?" she asked, tilting her head as she looked up at him. He was still in uniform, having that slightly rumpled, just off-shift look that she was coming to recognise, and she noted almost absently that he wore it well.
He shrugged, looking slightly abashed. "I thought that since we got interrupted in Pahrump, and since we're both coming off shift, that you might want to get some breakfast." He flashed her a quick grin, shoving both hands in his trouser pockets. "I mean, if you don't, that's fine too…"
He really looked as if he thought that she might refuse him, and Sara grinned broadly, making up her mind in that instant. "I'd love to," she told him honestly, and the smile that he gave her in return was a great help in banishing any residual bad feelings that her conversation with Grissom had left. "Let's go," she said, falling into step beside him, walking out into the morning sunshine.
She didn't look back.