Picture Perfect

By Ria

Grissom rued the day that he had agreed to sell his old digital camera to Greg. Ever since, various pictures had been appearing, both via the intranet email system, and pinned to notice boards.

Everyone had fallen victim, caught going around their usual duties. More than one person had threatened to shove the camera where the sun didn't shine if he didn't destroy the pictures. Catherine had been the first, caught mid shout looking a lot like she had a trout pout. Shouting at him, Grissom remembered. Bobbie, gun in hand, looking like he was about to shoot Archie. Greg certainly could twist angles and dimensions to make a simple picture look so much worse.

Impromptu poses were Greg's forte. One of him, for example, had recently been pinned to the board in the break room, studying his pet tarantula. Even he had to admit it was a good photo of the spider.

A new one resided on the notice board now. A simple portrait; two people caught in the middle of an intense discussion, in one of the labs. Off the cuff, it looked just that, like two colleagues talking work.

That wasn't the reason that Grissom had stood here looking at it for the last fifteen minutes, though. For one thing, Greg had certainly caught the female subject in the photo in her best light. It was how Grissom would always remember Sara; the serious look of the investigator, going over evidence, reaching conclusions or getting frustrated. It was a look he remembered on her from college. Back when she had been a young grad student, hanging on his every word. The one that told him that out of the group of people who had turned up for his lecture this girl meant business.

Being quizzed by her afterwards, his lecture being pulled apart in front of his eyes had both amazed and astounded him, his first glimpse into her beauty. Because she had become the definition of beautiful for him. It was a look he was reminded of often: The serious, no nonsense girl, intelligent, picking part a piece of evidence or a suspect's alibi. Even now he thought of her as beautiful.

The man in the photo was clearly listening to whatever Sara was talking about. Hanging on her every word could have been coined just for the expression on his face. Intensity burned in his eyes, the photo capturing a time in the two people's lives that existed just with them in it.

It wasn't that part of the photo that had him unsettled, though. Two colleagues working closely together: that was how the results they got kept flowing in the first place. No, there was one part of the photo that had caught his eye straight away. He couldn't identify what, exactly, it was about Sara's eyes that had caught his eye. It had picked at him, as he had stood staring, there in his grasp, but just out of sight. It had come to him in a flash as he had turned to walk away. The look, a look he was so familiar with, because at one time Sara had looked at him with that exact expression in her eyes.

It was a look he had thought was just Sara. At first. It had taken him a while to realise what the look was. It was a subtle, like Sara herself, hidden away, but there, if you looked hard enough. An intense look, an unashamed look of longing, of love.

He had got so used to seeing it in her look that he hadn't realised that it wasn't there any longer. And however hard he tried to think, he couldn't remember when it had disappeared. He only knew it had been gradual, a long time coming.

And now it was directed at someone else, at Warrick. Someone Sara had once described sarcastically as his "favourite CSI".

A complete surprise to him. And yet, thinking back, he didn't think it should be. They had worked together for years, a bond developing between them. Maybe it was his fault? He had pushed them into working together. At first, because he wanted them to get past their simultaneous hate for each other. Then more because it was easier not to work with Sara. Because he knew what Sara felt. And he knew what he felt. And he thought that he had known what he wanted for them.

It seemed cliché; he had stayed away because that was what was best for them. It had to be. When she had asked him out, taken the bull by the horns as it were, he had turned her down. Because how could they ever have a relationship?

Now that decision seemed too hasty. Too hasty, after pushing her away for so many years. But now that look was directed elsewhere, at someone else, and Grissom missed it. Missed having the option. Because he did love her. He just never had the words to tell her that.

And Sara had been good to her word. She hadn't waited around. He had figured it out, but it had been too late. Sara had moved on. And now it was too late for him.

The difference between the look Sara had in her eyes when she had looked at him, and the look in her eyes now, was that it was reflected in Warrick's. He had been careful, never to show, never to feel. But what he had felt, deep inside, was there on show, for the world to see, in Warrick's look. It wasn't hidden away, something to be ashamed of.

Grissom reached out, the drawing pin going skittering across the floor as he pulled the photo off the wall. He looked at it one last time before ripping the photo in two, crushing the two halves in his fist. But destroying the photo didn't stop the image in his mind. Or stop the realisation that he had waited too long for the one thing he wanted.