2. Knowing is Half(?) the Battle
He recalled an old after-school cartoon series…GI Joe, that was it. A prolonged bout with insomnia in the late 80s had acquainted him with it—and he had begun taping the show upon his recovery, having become hopelessly hooked. The squad had comfortably declared after each episode that "knowing is half the battle"—thereby deluding an entire generation of susceptible young minds into believing that watching the approach of a coming disaster would do a lick of good. He was not so easily deceived; he knew that his knowledge of his own culpability in this state of affairs did nothing to ameliorate it.
This staff meeting had been Melissa's idea—a way to reconnect with his junior CSIs, to begin the healing process.
"Sooner or later, they will let you have it," she warned. "Might as well hope for sooner."
She had explained a theory that some therapists proposed, that acceptance of a disability in some ways mirrored the recovery process of an addict. She herself found the 12-step program to have its problems, especially with its religious overtones that made it unpalatable to many.
"But I want you to consider adapting steps eight and nine," she had suggested. She had xeroxed them from a book for him, and he still had the scrap of paper tucked into his pocket.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
This meeting was his first attempt at amends.
Why did that inconvenient little rule about consuming alcohol while on the clock have to exist? He could sure use a stiff one—or three—right then.
He treated himself to a small laugh at the irony of employing two of the twelve steps, while contemplating the consumption of the substance—well, the abuse thereof—that had inspired them.
Cath scowled at him.
"Gonna share the joke?" she demanded.
He smiled at her.
"Nope," he replied, sauntering past her to take his place at the head of the table. Turnabout really was fair play.
The jauntiness faded from the room with the arrival of the first junior attendee, Nick. The dark-eyed Texan gave him a sidelong look, then chose a spot as far as he practically could from his boss and sometime mentor. Now that Melissa had ventured her guess as to what had been going on, Grissom could see it clearly—hurt was etched upon the profile that combined strength and delicacy to such good effect. Nick was not one to readily bury most of his emotions beneath the surface, and Grissom had always secretly admired that.
Warrick was the next to arrive. He actually seemed to find it within himself to greet his boss with a tentative half-smile and a brief "Evening, Griss," before seating himself next to his friend and office betting partner.
Was that an extension, however preliminary, of the olive branch?
Just as he was thinking that perhaps Melissa had overestimated the difficulty he would have in reestablishing the rapport that he and his team had developed over the years, Sara came striding into the room. Her eyes were again unreadable, her face pale and set. She brought with her an air of heaviness like that of a sudden summer storm.
He dismissed the idea of an easy solution.
Trailing in last was a surprise guest…Greg. The face under the spiky brown hair was as composed and friendly as always. The others turned to look at him in amazement—what was he doing at a staff meeting that he probably could have easily gotten out of? He returned their gazes with his usual bordering-on-the-supercilious smile.
Grissom stood up and cleared his throat, which gained him everyone's attention. He fought down a momentary feeling of panic, and wrestled back the tiny voice that tried to tell him that this was all a huge mistake, that he would be better off returning to the comfort and surety of secrecy.
"Hi, folks," he began lamely. The social niceties of beginning a meeting had never been of interest to him; consequently, he now felt himself to be at a distinct loss. Several sets of eyes reminded him that this was not a social club; that staff meetings were not exactly their idea of recreation to spice up the workday.
He leaned on his hands on the conference-style table, drawing on his years of lecturing and teaching to give him the wherewithal to go on.
"All right. I'm not going to waste your time. Basically, I've asked you here to apologize to you, and then get you up to speed on what's next for us."
A flurry of motion made him falter; by the time anyone in the room had realized what was happening, nothing was perceptible but the back of Sara's shiny, walnut-brown head and the slamming of the door.
This time, it was the urge to go after her that Grissom fought down. What good would following her achieve? He hadn't a clue. In a shadowy corner of his mind, he realized that an orchid, no matter how lovely, was not sufficient to remedy this setback. He filed that insight away for later perusal and forced himself to turn back to the remnants of his audience. Fortunately, they were all as taken aback as he had been; they hadn't yet started to become restless.
"Ah, yes. Well…as I said before, I realize that I owe every one of you an apology."
They weren't going to help him out of this one, he realized. They all waited, respectfully ready to listen to whatever he had to say. And, they were going to make him say it. No protestations of "Hey, that's okay" were going to be offered; the onus remained with him.
"Uh, yes, well, anyway…"
He knew he should have rehearsed this better, but he hadn't wanted to sound too slickly insincere, too unnatural. But he had never been good at thinking of things to say "on the fly"—on a social level, anyway. And Sara's abrupt departure hadn't helped matters; his mind was more inclined to deal with that issue than the one at hand.
Finally, Cath took pity on him. She waved a hand to ensure his attention.
"Why do you feel as if you need to apologize to us, Griss?" she prompted. This effort earned her baleful glares from Warrick and Nick, as they felt themselves to have been wronged. To them, she had been privileged, had been the favored confidante.
She, of course, knew better. And if a dirty look or two had ever been enough to faze her, she would have fled her chosen profession long ago. She smiled sweetly back at the two of them. Warrick's astonishingly green eyes continued to challenge hers; Nicky's gaze dropped to his hands on the table.
Grissom, meanwhile, now found himself able to stay on track. He made himself the bittersweet promise of seeking Sara out later, to find out what had prompted her unexpected actions. That had to be enough for now.
"I, as you now know, have been dealing with a medical issue for some time…"
Cath couldn't help herself. She snorted derisively.
He was now impervious to interruptions; he forged ahead.
"…which I have, for various reasons, been unable to share with you until now."
Cath said something under her breath, through clenched teeth, making her comments inaccessible to him. He decided that if she truly wanted a response from him, she would behave herself. Likely, she was instead simply venting. Nothing to do about that.
Nick, however, got to his feet and began pacing. Grissom realized that the younger CSI had been speaking to him while doing so, due to all the expectant glances he was now getting. He sighed. The apology would have to be back-burnered until The Problem was exposed, explained, and dissected to their satisfaction. He cringed inwardly.
"Nicky, I'm going to surmise that you've said something to me to which you'd like an answer."
The unwontedly sarcastic look that Nick gave him would have been hilarious under other circumstances. Now, it was simply annoying.
"All right," he said, allowing his exasperation to emerge in his tone. "I'm going to give you the facts as they stand, and then you may do as you like with them."
With those words, something within him shifted; the irritation evaporated. He now felt as comfortable as if he were merely presenting an interesting case for their review, the scientific approach being his "home" modality.
He looked directly at Nick, whose belligerence was beginning to fade into puzzlement.
"I have otosclerosis. You may research the condition on your own, should you not be familiar with it. It has caused a progressive hearing loss that led me to eventually pursue surgical remediation."
He did not intend to confide to this slightly hostile group that he'd sincerely hoped, right up until that last walk to the OR, that it would just 'go away,' as he'd told Dr. Al. "For various reasons, one of which apparently being the hereditary thinness of my cochleas, the surgery that was performed on my right ear was unsuccessful, causing a complete sensorineural hearing loss in that ear. Understandably, my surgeon does not wish at this time to operate on the left ear. I have a fluctuating loss in that ear that varies, but is never less than 60 decibels."
The expression on the faces before him changed to universal shock; even Catherine had not known all of this—not the true extent of his loss, anyway. Then, as he had feared, apprehension and dismay began to seep into their aspects. He continued in spite of the sinking feeling he was experiencing within his own spirit. How the heck was he going to keep the wolf at bay?
"So, Nick," he said, turning toward the now-repentant CSI, "In the future, any sarcastic remarks need to be made directly to me. My new mantra is: If I can't see you, I can't understand you." He swept them all with his glance. "And, those of you that tend to speak a bit rapidly might think to slow down once in a while."
Through the haze of perplexity, Greg, surprisingly, was the first to recover. He began to address Grissom, who held up a hand to stop him.
"First of all—if you can find it within yourself to call a temporary truce, do you think you might move closer? Right now, you're too far away for me to understand a word you're saying."
He was cheered by the scramble the two other CSIs made to get from the back of the conference room to the front, close to where their leader was standing. Cath moved over to make room for Warrick. He found it even more amusing to note the fact that those two so often ended up in close proximity when in a room together. He wondered—and doubted—if they noticed this.
"Better," he complimented, beginning to feel the semblance of the more confident person he had been in the past. He had gradually lost that part of himself over the previous months without really noticing it.
Greg favored him with a shadow of his trademark mischievous smile. Grissom immediately saw that their favorite lab rat was not yet back to his own pre-explosion exuberance; his own issues faded into manageability as he wondered if the tech's hands were still unsteady, a reminder of the terrible fright that had been inflicted upon him. But he could also see that the young man's insouciant spirit was still there to be retrieved—and he was glad of that.
"Pardon me for asking, but…"
Indecision was plainly keeping from going on.
"But…" Grissom prompted firmly, refusing to allow him to back down.
"How is this going to affect your work in the field, Grissom? I mean…"
They all knew what he meant. The lesson that Holly Gribbs' death had taught them was indelible—CSIs were frighteningly vulnerable at crime scenes. Could a CSI operating with fewer than five—some would say six—senses be able to watch a partner's back? Would that person be anything less than a liability to those working at a scene, being in need of extra protection?
Grissom's gaze was steel blue, uncompromising.
"For now, I have promised the director that I will not go unaccompanied to a crime scene."
As she did with any mention of Dr. Covallo nowadays, Catherine looked as if she were suddenly being confronted with a weeks-old case of putrefaction. He had the feeling that, should he ever decide to evade his promise (and he knew he would sooner or later if the director didn't release him from it), that she would go out of her way not to report him. He smiled. Warrick and Nick—who had gone over to sit with the others—smiled back, knowing looks on their faces. Solidarity against a common enemy made them willing to push aside their own doubts—for the moment.
"Do you ever plan to use an interpreter?" Catherine asked, having handled the paperwork that Covallo had sent.
He perceived that her question contained many subtexts, including: "Are we going to have to put up with outsiders because of you?" "Are you going to be able to cope with your job without a lot of special help?" "Is our lab going to disintegrate into a freak show?" He had thought of the same questions, and of more like them, so his answer was not impromptu.
"On occasion, yes. For large meetings, certain interviewing situations, cases where a misunderstanding could cause problems. Otherwise, on a daily basis, an interpreter won't be necessary."
He could sense the collective relief the assembled group felt with that answer; they were a tightly knit team, in many ways like a nuclear family. He had already taken a huge gamble when he had three years ago introduced an unknown quantity in the form of Sar—
She still had the power to derail his proverbial train of thought. He really needed to go after her and find out what had upset her so greatly. The impetus to bring the meeting to an abrupt close so that he could do so became nearly overwhelming. But professionalism won the battle this time.
It seemed as if his colleagues had asked all that felt comfortable bringing up at that particular time. Grissom leaned back in his chair.
"Bottom line—I'm on sufferance with the higher powers; I'm to be allowed to see if I can continue in my dual capacity of supervisor and field CSI. We will simply have to see if we can make this work as team. If not, then I will of course step down."
The dismay on every face made him understand that he wouldn't have to fight his own people, at least; that left his superiors and non-allied colleagues such as his fellow supervisor, Ecklie. That was a great relief—he wouldn't want to have to go up against the combined force of the astute minds of his team and his external opposers.
"Very well. Anyone with further questions or concerns—the usual applies. Talk to me. Leave me a nasty e-mail." They all laughed, surprised at the re-emergence of the humor that had slipped away along with his confidence.
Warrick raised an eyebrow.
"What are we supposed to do if we need to call you?"
Grissom had not forgotten that they would ask about that, and hoped that the technological revue wouldn't last so long that Sara had enough time to do something rash before he could catch up with her. Especially since she had been caught in the lab explosion, a certain recklessness had surfaced in her essential nature that worried him.
"The 'powers that be' are not always so miserly as they appear," he began. "They bought me a new sort of text pager called a BlackBerry…"
Nick's eyes lit up; then, he looked a bit envious.
"Those are so cool. Heck, I want one," he protested.
The characteristically eager look on Nick's face made Grissom have to work hard to suppress a fond smile. He instead responded with his own characteristic brusqueness.
"The mall cell-phone stores will all be open as soon as you get off shift. Knock yourself out," he suggested, eliciting a accusatory look from Nick and appreciative chuckles from the others.
"Anyway, my service is provided by a company that exists to serve deaf customers," he further clarified. He could see a discreet ripple of shock pass through his staff at his use of the term, but both sides decided to let it pass without comment. "Included among these services is voice-to-text messaging; you will be able to dial a toll-free number—which I'll provide you today—give my wireless number, and specify the message you want to send. It would then be delivered to me instantly. I'll also be able to receive e-mails from you at the lab, regular text messages from your cell phones, even faxes. In the direst of emergencies, I hope that you would dial 911 instead of me."
This got the laughter he was aiming for. He realized that, should his bid to remain employed at the lab not work out, he still had the skill to teach at the university level. That prospect, however, made him decide to work all the harder to hold out until retirement. He produced the pager, snazzily outfitted in a bright blue cover and sporting a handy miniature QWERTY keyboard. While they handled it, appreciatively but gingerly, Grissom's thoughts returned to Sara. She was a big girl, had been an adult for some time. He could not abandon his work responsibilities—especially not now—to deal with their interpersonal issues. He felt some of the first tranquility return to his mind in months as he decided that he would seek her out in due time—after he had finished his obligations to his other co-workers.