TITLE: Showdown
AUTHOR: Anansay
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: [GSR] – A conversation in Grissom's office.
SPOILERS: All the way to the end of S4 and beyond.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: As per my usual style I had no idea where this one was going. I started out with a touch of humour (I hope) but then, of course, I got interrupted. The few more times that I tried to recapture that mood was fruitless. But I continued writing anyway. I'm not quite sure how it ended up. All I can is that I HOPE it worked out, that it's not too choppy.
I have a few other stories in the works but, of course, getting back that 'mood' is proving rather difficult at the moment. Finding an adequate chunk of time to really formulate thoughts and put them down is like the search for the Holy Grail—rather moot on most days, unfortunately.

{-}

Showdown

By Anansay
June 12, 2004

{-}

"Man, you are the most exasperating person I've ever met!"

The shout could be heard clear across the halls. Of course, the smooth and unadorned glass walls did not nothing to dispel any sudden loud noise that should happen to come careening from anywhere. Therefore, it was heard by many and all who were presently occupying some room or another within the CSI building.

This was completely lost on the dueling couple cocooned within the morbidly dark office of one Gil Grissom. He and Sara faced each other above his desk, he leaning forward at his desk and she standing with her hands on her hips. Sara's red face, flaring nostrils and puffing chest gave clear evidence this wasn't some ordinary conversation.

"What are you talking about?" Grissom's calm voice seemed oddly out of place after Sara's bellow. But if one were to look—or listen—deeper, one could discern a slim tightness in the words, a curious squinting of the eyes, a pressing of the lips as he struggled to grasp the situation.

Sara glared at him, a pulse jumping in her cheek as her teeth worked to press permanent grooves in themselves and quite possibly give her lockjaw. "I don't understand you, Grissom. There was a time I thought I did. There was a time I thought I knew a lot about you. You took that idea and shredded it. Completely I might add. Unless you've had some sort of character transplant that I don't know about—those overnight jobs or something—you are not the man I came to know long ago in Frisco."

Grissom sighed, closed his eyes and rubbed them. All he'd wanted was some privacy so he could finally get to the bottom of the piles of paperwork and quite possibly reacquaint himself with his desk. Obviously the fates had something else in mind for him tonight.

"Sara… please, for the love of god, tell me what you are talking about, or get out of my office." He spoke slowly, enunciating each word carefully so as not to have to repeat himself. If there was one thing Grissom detested was repeating himself to perfectly intelligent people—those with a working brain.

"I'm not leaving. At least not yet."

"Why?"

"Not until I've said what I've come to say."

"And that would be…?"

"You're… and ass."

His eyes shot open. And as the bright little lights behind his eyes faded to his own office he focused on Sara standing there, in his office, glaring down at him. "I'm a what?"

"An ass. And I don't care if I get fired for calling my boss an ass, it's what you are."

Grissom stared at her. Surely he must be dreaming. This had to be a dream, right? Sara wouldn't come barging into his office calling him names, would she?

Maybe she would. This was, after all, Sara Sidle.

"Why am I ass?"

"For leading me on."

Grissom blinked. This had to be a dream!

"That's right, sit there and blink like some owl, Grissom. You know I'm telling the truth."

"Sara, at this time, I have no idea what you are trying to tell me."

"Knock it off. You know, for such an intelligent man, you really are just… a man. Blind and dumb when it comes to feelings. Oh sure you can spout of facts and quote long dead poets like you're channeling them, but try and come up with something original and you're flummoxed. Tongue-tied. Blubbering idiot. Or, worst or all, you say absolutely nothing!"

"Sara…"

"And another thing. You are going to either quit this stupid little flirting game you've been doing for the past four years, or do something about it. Or I quit."

That got his attention. At least the last word. "Quit?"

"That's right—quit." She switched feet. Guess the other was falling asleep.

"You'd quit," he repeated, as if the word—the very idea—were somehow alien to his universe.

"Yes, Grissom. I… will… quit."

"But why?" Maybe if he just played it smooth, everything would just… fade away and come back normal again. Like a dream.

Her sigh-slash-growl would have scared many a grown man. For Grissom it just brought home the fact that Sara was a unique person—woman—and that her uniqueness made her all the more dangerous. She was unstable, perhaps suffering from pre-menstrual syndrome, or something. Either way, it was a volatile situation.

"Grissom, think. Just for one minute, think. Think about us, think about when I first got here. Think about us now. Think about us, and how we got to this point. Grissom, we can barely work a case together without snarling down each other's throat about one thing or another."

"We do?"

Her eyes rolled skyward and she sighed again. "Yes, Grissom. We do. I don't know what kind of game you're playing but it's going to stop. Here, and now."

A shiver ran through Grissom's body, his hand jerked on his desk. "H-how?"

Sara stood still for moment, never looking away from him. Deep in thought, she came to the end of one and took the chair, falling into it like she'd suddenly lost whatever had kept her upright during her verbal rampage. "I tried to do it once Grissom, remember?"

"You did?"

"I asked you out."

"Oh."

"And you said—"

"—no," he breathed.

"That's right. At the time I simply believed that I'd misread an entire three years of subtle flirting as meaning something more—"

"—it did!—"

"—but you said no. So I dropped it. Stayed away. Gave you your space. Hell, I even made sure that you wouldn't be influenced by that one mistake of mine. But obviously you were."

Grissom leaned back. "Ah, this is about the promotion!" He smiled—he finally got it!

"No

His smile disappeared. "No?"

"Not entirely. It's only a piece of a much bigger puzzle."

"It is?"

"Yes, Grissom! Would you listen!"

"I am!"

"No. If you were, you wouldn't be asking such stupid questions!"

Grissom spluttered. "Stupid?"

"Yes Grissom, stupid. As in—knowing the answer but asking the question anyway. Stupid."

"I know what stupid means, Sara—"

"Then you are choosing to behave this way? Of you own free will?" Sara sat forward, her eyes growing bigger in stupefaction.

That was it, the end of Grissom's proverbial rope—and he was not going to tie a noose and hang himself with it either! "Sara, don't ever call me stupid again."

His voice sounded firm in his head and he only hoped it came as such as well. If the expression on Sara's face was any indication, it came out sounding relatively…squeaky. Not good.

"Grissom, I am not calling you stupid. I'm saying that what you're doing is stupid."

"Semantics."

"No. I know you're not stupid. You just do stupid things."

Grissom blinked, sighed and then ran a hand over his face. "Sara, this conversation is making no sense. Make it make sense, or let me get back to work."

Sara sighed. "Grissom, you need to think."

"About what?"
"Things."

Humans weren't meant to growl and yet growl Grissom did—he growled her name, and then ground his next words. "What are you talking about?"

Sara sat forward and spread her lips in a wide and condescending grin, similar to that of a frustrated teacher for a recalcitrant student. "Grissom, you can't just utter stupid inane things to a girl and not expect her to react."

Grissom allowed his eyes to stray from Sara and he peered around himself, as unobtrusively as he could, seeking out that hidden camera. There had to be a hidden camera. Maybe it was hidden in his tarantula habitat—that frond wasn't there yesterday, was it? Was that one of his books? Ah, the Billy bass—those eyes. There were so many possibilities—too many—in this hodgepodge of an office. When he brought his head back to Sara, nothing had changed. "Stupid… inane… things….?"

"That's right."

"Like…?"

" 'Since I met you' ? Ring any bells?"

"Sara—"

"And 'I need you.' "

"Sara—"

"And 'I have you.' "

"Sara—"

"And, oh, how about: I couldn't do it."

"Sa—what?" And everything stopped.

"Now you're listening!"
"Sara, wh-what are you talking about?" His heart came back to life with a vengeance, stammering away in his chest like some stuttering halfwit.

Sara sat back, crossed her arms over her chest, her chin held high. "I do believe you know."

"I…" It was too much and with a resounding hollow thud his head hit the desk and a muffled oh god could be heard from beneath.

"Yeah. Guess you forgot about that double mirror thing, huh?"

After a moment Grissom raised his head. A sharp red blotch adorned his forehead. His face suddenly appeared ancient: tired eyes, haggard skin and a drawn mouth.

Sara continued. "You might want to reconsider where you plan on divulging such personal information next time. That was probably the worst place."

"Oh god…"

Sara smiled but it held no happiness. "Like I said: an ass."

"Sara I—"

"No," she cut him off. "Don't even try. I don't want to hear it. For three years you exasperated me. No more."

"What?"

"You heard me, no more. No more confusing little snippets of quotes. I don't want to hear them, they tell me nothing. For the first time in a long time I heard words coming out of your mouth that were yours. Not some quote, or saying. They were yours." She paused as a new idea intruded on her monologue. "Actually, I do want to know something.

Grissom closed his eyes and groaned.

"Oh please Grissom, if you can do it once you can do it again. Consider it practice for when you begin speaking in your own words for good."

"What?" he drawled out.

"When you said you couldn't do it, what exactly did you mean?"

He blinked slowly. "What do you mean?"

"Well, typical of your usual ambiguity, those words could be taken in more than one context. What I want to know is in which context did you mean them?

"What do you mean?"

"Would you just answer the question!"

"I don't understand it."

"Well, did you mean you couldn't, as in the past? Or 'couldn't' as in could never, at all…?" Her voice faded away, too weak to really give strength to her question.

His haggard face grew more so as he pondered the weight of her question. Indeed those words had been uttered in the heat of the moment with no forethought behind them. What had he meant exactly?

"There was a time when I couldn't," he said slowly, into the ether. His eyes were clouded and far away. "There was fear. Fear of the unknown. You were something that I could never have, that I could never be. You had feelings and you laughed. You made me feel so alive I wanted to burst. You were more than I could ever hope to be." He looked at her. "When you asked me to dinner, that fear came back. How could I be with you, reach you when you were so perfect? I couldn't do it."

As though suddenly struck by lightning, Sara sat in her chair staring wide-eyed ahead at a man who'd suddenly metamorphosed into something completely different. Gone was the stuttering confusion, replaced by a sad perception of a skewered reality. "And now?" Sara whispered.

"And now…" His eyes glistened, bright and shiny in the dim light of his office. "Now I think it might be too late."

Sara stood up. "Do you know why you're an exasperating man, Grissom?" He watched her walk around the desk, her hand trailing along the smooth surface. "Because you can see so much in a crime scene, in evidence, but you can't see what's been right in front of you for so long." She stopped in front of him, her hand still on the desk—an anchor. His chair was turned and he was looking up at her.

"I can see you."

"But do you really? I mean, you said it yourself, you haven't seen me in a while. You've seen me, you just haven't really looked."

He lowered his head. "No, I didn't."

"Look at me Grissom."

He did. The luster was still there, still teetering on the edge.

Very slowly, Sara crouched down, one hand on his knee for support, until she was looking directly into his eyes, neither one above the other. "Do you see me now?"

"Yes…"

"What do you see?" Her fingers began rubbing along the fabric, just a light brush. She seemed unaware of this.

Grissom gulped. In the faint light his eyes flickered in distraction as they roamed over her face and crouched figure. With an audible swallow he began speaking. "I see… a woman. A woman of such remarkable strength and determination. A woman who can be both hard and soft. Quiet and forceful. I see… someone beautiful and smart—too smart sometimes." The movements of her hand were growing. "I see a woman in pain—" Sara twitched, "—who hides it well. And I can see that I caused most of that pain." His voice had softened and grown throaty and was now but a tremulous whisper in the thickened silence.

A single tear cascaded down Sara's cheek. Grissom was biting his inner lip, anything to keep his own emotions in check.

"I see you Sara."

"Can you?"

"I couldn't before, but I can now. And I'll never stop looking, or seeing."

Slowly Sara tilted up as Grissom leaned down and they met in the middle, their lips softly brushing for the first time. It wasn't magical but it was soothing. A gentle caress meant to allay fears and awaken needs. With sweet abandon Grissom allowed himself to feel—to really feel—for the first time in a long time and what had been a spark so long ago blossomed again. Only this time it flourished in a different time, in a different place and between different people.

It couldn't have been any other way.

THE END

Copyright © 2004 Anansay