Despite his attempt to change the channel to make himself not daydream about certain coworkers, his thoughts again began to wander to Sara. He yawned and shook himself. He really needed to stay focused. Life would be so much easier if everything were like science. There at least you knew there was a right answer if you looked long enough. There were rules in science; there were predictable patterns. With people, things could go topsy turvey without warning. Sometimes people were not as predictable as he wished they were. Human behavior is so bizarre sometimes. One day she is asking him if he wants to sleep with her, another day she is asking him to diner. Ok, so on some things she is consistent. But why did she want to take them beyond friendly coworkers? Why did she want to go into the unpredictability of who knows where from the safety of their harmless flirting and banter?
Grissom could just see the lights of Vegas reflecting in the sky on the horizon. He should be home soon. He was still daydreaming about Sara and their complicated relationship when the coyote bounded into the road. He never even saw it. The impact caused the vehicle to skid sideways, and roll into the ditch. Two complete flips, and it came to rest upside down. And the radio sang on…
"Hold on. The night is coming and the starling flew for days. I'd stay home at night all the time. I'd go anywhere, anywhere. Ask me and I'm there because I care. Sara, you're the poet in my heart, never change, never stop. And now it's gone, it doesn't matter what for…"
Somewhere mid way through the first flip Grissom was knocked unconscious, but his mind was busy. The first thing he saw was himself at age three. He was watching ants crawl on the sidewalk. He had been interested in bugs as long as he could remember. The picture changed. Now he saw him and his mother signing to each other, he was ten. Next was a moment of high school, when he was in his favorite class, science. This was followed by a barrage of seminars and cases that he had worked on. A thousand photo albums of snapshots in time, crime after crime, some solved, some still open. Then came Sara. He saw her in a pink shirt, sunglasses on, arms crossed across her chest. "Norman pushed, Norman jumped, Norman fell." He saw her digging frantically in the dirt trying to find the woman buried somewhere beneath, her hair blown in swirls by the breeze created by the swirling helicopter blades. He saw her leaning on the doorframe of an airplane bathroom, an embarrassed smile on her lips. "Ah, the mile high club." Now she was standing in the door of his office, almost in tears. "What if you hear the victim's screams? At home, at the store…" Then she was wearing protective goggles, a little too big for her face. Hovering with him behind protective glass as they blew up test bombs. She was sitting on the side of a hospital bed, with a necklace of St. Katherine in her hand. She was in front of a computer screen, looking up information on gorilla trafficking. She was in a grocery store, trying to lure a killer. She was staying up for three days searching databases for missing persons. She was sitting beside him at an ice rink, wearing a black stocking cap. She was standing under a bridge, looking off into the sky. She was eating breakfast with him and the rest of the team, smiling and laughing. She had a beautiful smile. She is in the lab, concentrating so hard on a piece of evidence that she tunes out the rest of the world. She is in the garage in a jumpsuit, taking apart a car piece by piece.
~She's sun and rain; she's fire and ice. A little crazy but it's nice. And when she gets mad you best leave her alone. 'Cause she'll rage just like a river, then she'll beg you to forgive her. She's every woman that I've ever known. She's so New York and then L.A., and every town along the way. She's every place that I've never been. She's making love on rainy nights. She's a stroll through Christmas lights, and she's everything I want to do again. No it needs no explanation, 'cause it all makes perfect sense. When it comes down to temptation she's on both sides of the fence. She's anything but typical; she's so unpredictable. Oh, but even at her worst she ain't that bad. She's as real as real can be, and she's every fantasy. Lord she's every lover that I've ever had, and she's every lover that I've never had.~ And with that, his mind went blank.