A/N: I really can't say enough about the wonderful support from the folks at the PwF chat room. You guys are the greatest!
Spoilers: References to Bully for You and All For Our Country.
"Do you have your badge?" Grissom queried as they were leaving Sara's apartment.
"Do I need it?" Sara couldn't for the life of her imagine why she'd need her identification badge on a date.
"Well, I have mine," he replied. "And most of the guards know me. But bring yours just in case. That way, if anyone questions why we're there, it will appear work related. They're not fond of tourists and gawkers."
"Wait, wait," she finally caught on. "Are we going to the body farm?"
"Not good?" Gil frowned.
"Sweeeeet!"
Her enthusiasm caused a wide grin to spread across Gil's face. It nearly matched the one in his heart. He had feared that the events of the last two years had forever destroyed the zest with which she had approached her work. Her once eager nature had been replaced over time with a resigned, if not flat, affect.
He had known her for nearly ten years now, and she still amazed him. Sure, he had met people before who were curious about his hobbies and passions, but as soon as he would begin to explain things to them in terms that they understood, their curiosity quickly turned to disgust. "Gruesome Grissom" was a term that, although he grudgingly admitted applied, still hurt his feelings when flung at him by others. Except Sara. He could recall her using it only once, and it hadn't bothered him. He supposed the reason it hadn't bothered him was because she was the only person he'd ever met who was just as interested in these topics as he was. It was undeniably refreshing to spend time with someone who truly understood.
Beautiful. Intelligent. Passionate. A kindred spirit. Sara embodied everything he could want in a mate. Conversing with her was easy and stimulating. So why did he find it so difficult to open up to her? Why had it taken him more than three years and the shock of a victim bearing an uncanny resemblance to reach out to her? He now knew that the answer was fear. Fear of professional consequences, fear of intimacy, fear of rejection, and not the least among them, fear of the unknown. Fear had kept him from happiness, but now he that he had decided to face his fear, he felt an odd sense of liberation.
Rolling to a stop outside the gate of the Forensic Anthropology Facility, he lowered his window and flashed his badge at the Peter, a guard he knew.
"Good evening, Mr. Grissom," Peter recognized him and buzzed open the gate.
"Thank you, Peter."
Grissom parked the car and retrieved a flashlight and a packet of papers from his glove box. "I printed out a listing of the current residents," he grinned at Sara, handing the papers to her. "I hope you have lemons at home."
Sara thumbed through the document, pleased to see that it provided a map of the facility, with the locations of the bodies clearly marked and the corresponding experiments described below the entries.
"Wow," Sara paused beside a partially decomposed cadaver submerged in a small swimming pool. "It looks like, uh, Freddy's been here a while."
"Freddy died from blunt force trauma to the head, motorcycle accident I believe. He's here to help determine the rate of brain decomp in an exposed brain versus a brain that's still enclosed in the skull. Which brings us to Howard," Grissom shone the flashlight to illuminate a second body at the other side of the pool. "Howard died of natural causes."
The pair moved along a pathway toward the next grotesque experiment. "So, there are 22 bodies here at the moment. Where do they get them?"
"Donations mostly. Believe it or not, there's usually a waiting list. You'd be amazed how many people want to donate their body to the body farm," Gil said. "With each wave of new publicity comes a new wave of donations. Why take up more space filling a hole in the ground when your body could be of far more use in research after you've finished with it?"
"Is that your plan?" Sara cocked an eyebrow at him.
"Sure," Grissom shrugged. "I don't know about the body farm specifically, but I'd definitely donate it to science. They can do whatever they want with my body after I'm dead. What about you?"
"Well, I'm sure as hell not going to be buried. I was thinking cremation, but I'm not averse to donating to science. I'm already signed up for organ donation."
The next corpse they happened upon was wrapped snugly in a burlap sack. Sara scanned the paper in her hand, "Martha's doused in gasoline?"
"I don't recall this one," Gil said, attempting to read over her shoulder.
"At the request of the authorities in Bozeman," Sara paraphrased the description. "Testing a theory about a murder there. Killer doused the body in gasoline, but since he didn't set fire to it, they're not sure why."
"It seems like they have a good amount of unused space," she
surveyed the landscape. "I wonder why they only have 22 bodies at a time if
there's a waiting list."
"It's a three acre facility. They have to allow for a certain amount of space per body or they could run into cross-contamination issues," Gil stooped to pick up a silphid beetle from the grass to illustrate his point. "The validity of the research could be called into question."
"Is it macabre that I'm really enjoying this?" Sara confessed, blushing. "Does it make me evil?"
"Well, if it's evil, then we're evil together," Gil winked.
"Good answer," she smiled.
"Ugh!" Sara stopped in her tracks when she saw the garbage bag beside the
path.
"Ah, decomp in a plastic bag," he nodded knowingly. "They're waiting for him to liquefy."
Sara rolled her eyes. "Yeah. Been there."
"That bad, huh?"
"The worst," she replied. "Seriously, Liquid Man has to be absolutely the most disgusting one I've seen. He's the only one that ever made me lose my lunch."
Grissom appeared surprised by at her admission.
"That bloated floater that Catherine and I had recently was pretty bad," she continued. "But it didn't quite beat Liquid Man."
Grissom's curious expression made Sara aware that he had noticed her growing agitation with this topic. She was secretly thankful that he didn't know that the case had also been the beginning of a disastrous turn in their relationship—it was the day she had met Hank Peddigrew. If only Grissom knew how desperately she wished she could turn back time and do things differently.
When Gil returned her to her apartment that evening, he walked her to the door. "Now that you've seen my idea of a second date, how badly damaged are my chances of a third?" He grinned playfully.
"Well, you do know how to show a girl a good time…" she returned the tease. "I'll give you another shot." She kissed him softly on the lips. "I've always wanted to see the body farm. Thanks."
Grissom couldn't wipe the grin off his face, "Good night."
TBC
