"Yet each man kills the thing he loves…"
~Oscar Wilde~
Gil looked closely at the insects tacked to the board. The establishment of the time of death by linear regression analysis was an inexact science, and the entomologist wanted to be certain it was correct.
"Doc Robbins says four to five days," Sara extended the olive branch from the doorway. "What do your bugs say?"
"The bugs would have to concur," Grissom smiled slightly as he looked over at her. "It's safe to say she's been dead since Tuesday."
Sara nodded, "He killed her Monday night or Tuesday morning."
"Sara," Grissom searched for the right words. "As of yet, we can only prove that she was battered in the past and killed in her home. We can't prove conclusively that Anthony McCalmant is the person who murdered her."
"You can't think he's innocent."
"No, believe he's probably guilty. But what I believe doesn't matter. What matters is what a jury will believe beyond a reasonable doubt."
"So we'll keep looking," Sara responded with determination.
Grissom paused for a moment, trying to convince himself that the time was right to broach the subject. An odd feeling of dread settled over him. "Sara, I should tell you that I recommended Nick for the promotion." There, it's out, he exhaled.
"What a surprise," Sara said sarcastically.
"You don't think I was objective?"
"I know you weren't. But prove me wrong; tell me in what way Nick is a better CSI than I am."
Gil stared blankly at her.
"You can't, can you? You let your personal issues with me cloud your judgment. And I'll bet you're still not willing to talk about 'this'" she made quotation marks in the air with her fingers, "Much less resolve it."
When Grissom remained silent, she continued, "Don't screw with my career, Grissom. It's all I have left." There was a pained but unmistakable warning in her tone.
Grissom looked at the floor, struggling to put his thoughts into words. When at last he was able to speak, he looked up at the empty doorway. She was gone.
*^*^*^*^*^*
"For all the sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these—it might have been"
~John Greenleaf Whittier~
By the fourth ring, Sara managed to stagger out of bed and grab the telephone. "Hello?"
"Sara, it's me," Gil's voice sounded tentative through the line. "It's obvious that we need to talk about some things. Can you meet me for dinner before work?"
Sara bit her lip, "If the conversation goes the way I suspect it will, I won't have much of an appetite."
"How about coffee, then?"
"Grissom, I…okay, where and when?"
"The diner near the lab, nine o'clock."
"Okay," she hung up the receiver.
Sara pulled into the diner's parking lot, put the car into park and turned off the engine. The tension in her shoulders and neck was nearly paralytic. She found herself filled with dread. I wanted him to talk to me, and now he wants to. So why do I feel like I'm going to my execution?
She spotted Grissom in a booth in the corner of the nearly empty diner, the strategic location affording them a measure of privacy. She noticed his hand trembling around his coffee cup as she sat down across from him.
"I ordered your coffee," he pointer shakily toward the steaming cup in front of her. "With cream and sugar."
"Thanks."
"I'm not sure where to start," Grissom admitted.
"I'll start," Sara took the initiative. "I heard you."
"Excuse me?"
"I heard you. When that nurse who looked like me was killed and you were interviewing the doctor. I was in the observation room."
Confusion turned to fear as Gil's brain registered her words, "You heard me."
"Maybe I should have felt relieved, you know, because when you rejected my dinner invitation, I started to wonder if you ever cared at all or if I was the biggest fool on the planet. Maybe I'd misread all the things you'd said and done over the last three years." The more Sara spoke, the easier it became for her to release the long-suppressed emotion. "Then I heard what you said, and I knew I didn't imagine anything. You do care. But I didn't feel relieved. If anything, I feel more depressed and conflicted than ever…because you're still not willing to take the chance."
Grissom's expression was unreadable. Sara continued, "It's kind of a hollow victory. 'Hey look at that, he does want you!' But so what? I still go home alone every day. I still look at my answering machine and see 'No messages'."
"Yes," Gil confessed. "I do have feelings for you. But the situation is very complicated…what I feel is very strong, very intense. It's terrifying. It could destroy me."
"Destroy you?"
"I'm not a young man, Sara. I don't have much to offer a beautiful young woman. I can't give you would you need," a mask of resigned sadness descended over his face. "You'd want more—you'd need more. And when you left, it would be the end of me."
"I'd never leave."
"But that's just it. You already did."
"What? I don't know—" his words resounded in her head: She showed you a wonderful life, didn't she? But then she took it away and gave it to somebody else. And you were lost. "If you mean Hank, you're totally wrong about that."
Grissom winced at the mention of the paramedic's name, "Am I?"
"I never wanted him. I was in love with you. And I thought maybe you felt something for me, too. But you never made a move. Instead you kept telling me to find a diversion, get some outside interests. So I gave up. I was so lonely," her voice broke. "I only went out with him to get over you. It was a dismal failure." She reached out and placed her hand over his, "I never left you. I didn't know I had you."
"When Gerrard dropped that on me, it shattered me into a million pieces."
"I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt you. If I had thought for a second that I had a chance with you…" Sara's voice trailed off as she shook her head regretfully. "So what now?"
"I can't do it, Sara," he told her gently.
"Why not?" She released his hand.
"I'm your supervisor. It could cost us everything."
"Is that a deal-breaker?"
"Yes."
"You're afraid of screwing up our working relationship?"
"Yes."
"I don't see how it can get any more screwed up than it already is."
"Sara…"
"I understand." Grissom could hear the anger and frustration in her voice.
"I don't think you do."
"Oh, I understand all right," she sputtered through her tears. "You've weighed the risks versus the benefits and decided I'm not worth the trouble."
"No, that's not it at all."
"Then what is it?"
"I don't know how to explain it when I don't understand it myself."
"So I'm six hundred miles from my family and friends, in love with a man who won't even try, and I have no hope of professional advancement because you can't treat me objectively?"
"Sara, I'm sorry…I…I just can't."
"Well I guess we've covered all the topics," she said, getting up from the table. "There's nothing more to talk about." As she walked away, she turned and offered him a sad smile, "It's a shame, you know? We could have been really good together."
TBC