Disclaimers, etc.: see Ch. 1, 13
Sara's first nights back at work were a relief, restriction notwithstanding. She'd spent the last two days of her enforced vacation day-hiking around Lake Mead, desperate just to get out of her apartment. Her colleagues smiled to see her--some with an edge of sympathy, but it didn't bother her as much as she expected. No one breathed a word about her DUI, and eventually Sara dared to hope that the news really hadn't made it out of the police network.
By Thursday evening, she was itching to get back into the field, but kept her mouth shut. It's only two more days. She finished her latest database search and printed out the information she had collected, and went looking for her supervisor.
Grissom wasn't in his office, or the DNA lab. Nor was he in the conference room, but there were three people sitting there, and she poked her head in the door. "Sorry to bother you," she said politely, "but has Dr. Grissom been by?"
The man and woman sitting close together didn't look up until the woman on the other side of the table did. None of them answered, which puzzled Sara, but a second later she realized that she'd seen the lone woman before. Her eyes widened--it was the woman from the photographs, and from the church. The connections closed in Sara's mind. She's Deaf--they must be that dead kid's family. "Sorry," she said, not knowing if any of them could hear at all, wondering if they could lip-read. "I, uh, I'll find him."
The dark-haired woman frowned, and stood up, shoving her chair back. "Where did you get that?" Her voice, like Dr. Gilbert's, was muffled, and the inflections were off, but the words were clear. She stalked up to Sara, throwing her head back to glare up at the taller woman, and pointed at Sara's chest. "Why do you have that?"
Sara looked down, confused, and caught sight of the necklace she'd put on earlier that evening. It was the one Grissom had given her in California, the pearl puzzle on the long chain, and it had apparently slipped from under her lab coat. "I...this?" She picked it up from where it rested in front of her sternum. "Grissom gave it to me, I--"
The woman's face was fierce. "You have no right. It's not yours!" Behind her, the couple were staring at the two women, looking worried. The woman's hand hovered, as though she were thinking of pulling the necklace from Sara's throat, and the CSI took a cautious step backward. "It's not yours."
Sara shook her head. "Look, I'm sorry if I've done something wrong, but it was just--"
"Give it to me!" The older woman took another step forward, forcing Sara out into the corridor. Sara wrapped her fist around the pendant, unsure of what was going on, but knowing that she didn't want to give it up. Grissom had given it to her. But it might have been a mistake, her mind pointed out. Maybe Mrs. Grissom meant to leave it to her. You don't even know if the will's been read yet.
The woman wasn't giving up. "Give it to me now!"
"Irene!" The name crackled through the air, loud enough to get the attention of both women, and they turned to see Grissom striding down the corridor. He was in full supervisor mode, some part of Sara noticed, putting on the complete authority he so rarely used. "What are you doing?" he asked, speaking and signing at the same time.
He didn't wait for an answer as he reached them, just herding them both back into the conference room and turning to the older woman with a stern face. "What are you talking about?"
Sara's gaze flicked between his moving hands and Irene, trying to take in all that was going on. Fortunately for Sara, Irene spoke as she signed back. "That necklace is mine, Gilbert! You know Robin meant me to have it. She--" and her gesture towards Sara was contemptuous-- "has no right to it."
Grissom's frown deepened, and he glanced at the other couple, who shook their heads at him. "Irene..." His voice was tired, and on impulse Sara ducked out of the necklace.
"Grissom--if it belongs to her--" She held it out to him, but before the older woman could reach for it, Grissom shook his head and folded Sara's hand around the pendant.
"No. It's yours." He turned back to Irene. "If Mom had meant you to have it, she would have given it to you." He rode ruthlessly over her objection. "You gave up all your rights a long time ago."
Grissom turned his back on the woman, ignoring her sputter of fury. "Is that your report?" he asked Sara calmly, holding out his hand for the folder. To the casual eye he was only annoyed, but Sara knew him too well, and she could see the anger and embarrassment in his eyes. She nodded and put it into his grasp, meeting his gaze, trying to let him know that she would keep this secret along with all the others she now held.
A little of the strain eased from his face, and she withdrew, shutting the door behind her.
Sara didn't see Grissom more than in passing for the rest of the shift; things got busy and he left for a scene with Warrick after showing the three civilians out. Sara processed evidence as Nick and Catherine brought it in, preferring scut work to paperwork, and got absorbed; the buzz of her pager near the end of shift made her jump. The display bid her to Grissom's office, and she complied.
He was looking stressed, she noticed as she paused in his doorway. The lines of his face were deeper than usual, and he was squinting at the papers he held, his mouth drawn in a tight line. But when she rapped on the doorframe, he looked up and smiled a little, some of the strain fading. "Come in, Sara."
She took two steps forward and looked inquiring, and he nodded, so she shut the door and sat down.
"How's it going?" Grissom asked, and she pursed her lips.
"Is that a professional question or a personal one?"
He snorted, though she wasn't trying to be funny. "Both, I suppose." He glanced at his watch. "I didn't pull you away from anything important, did I?"
"Nah." She sat back a little. Grissom tossed the papers on his desk, then got up and came around, taking the other chair next to hers.
"I...wanted to explain. About earlier today."
Oh. "Only if you want to tell me."
Grissom's glance was sharp. "I get the feeling that you know a lot of it already," he said dryly, and Sara felt one corner of her mouth twitch up in helpless reaction.
"Well..."
He shook his head. "I should have known better than to leave you alone with that album," he muttered, and rubbed his face tiredly.
"When Irene and I were...together," Grissom began reluctantly, "she and Mom were pretty close. Irene was fascinated by that necklace, and Mom knew it, though I don't think she ever actually promised it to Irene. Afterwards...well, I know Irene kept in touch with her." His mouth was tight. "I really didn't expect to run into Irene again...I mean, I suppose it was inevitable, the Marina del Rey Deaf community's pretty small, but--not like this." He let out a long breath. "I'm really sorry about all that, Sara," he added, surprising her. "Tony's family is very upset by his death, and Irene's always been kind of volatile, but--"
"It's okay, Grissom," Sara interjected. "Really."
"No, it's not," he said, with some asperity. "She has no excuse for her behavior."
Sara couldn't quite make sense of his expression--his face held weariness, and grief, and a touch of anger, but there were other emotions there that she couldn't identify. He closed his eyes for a moment.
"Seeing Irene again has dredged up a lot of stuff I thought I'd left behind," he admitted. A chill began to form in Sara's heart.
What does that mean? Is he still interested in her? I don't even know why they broke up in the first place. "You don't have to explain anything to me," she said softly.
Grissom's eyes opened, and he looked at her intently. "No, I don't suppose I do," he agreed, and she felt the cold deepen suddenly.
"I should get going," she said, keeping her voice calm and pushing herself to the edge of the chair. But Grissom leaned over and put his hand on hers, a touch that even now she was not expecting.
"I don't have to, Sara, but I want to," he said. "You've been amazing through all of this, and I know you're curious."
The cold receded a bit, and Sara let herself relax. "Who, me?" she asked, giving him a smile that he returned, letting her go and leaning back in his chair.
"Irene and I were engaged to be married...hmmm...twenty-three years ago. She broke it off." His mouth quirked, old pain. "It hurt a lot at the time, but it also taught me some valuable lessons."
"Like?" Sara asked softly.
"Like, never assume that the other person feels the same way you do." He was looking off into the distance, into the past, and something in her wanted to go find Irene and kick the her ass, even though the young woman who had hurt him so badly was half a lifetime ago. "Or that they'll go on feeling the same way even if they do."
His words weren't directed at her; he wasn't giving her any secret message. In fact, he looked so distracted that Sara guessed that he was probably saying more than he might have if he'd been paying attention. Nonetheless, the words hurt.
"Life's like that," she pointed out gently. "Everybody has to learn that lesson sometime."
Grissom's eyes came back into focus, and his smile was sad. "I suppose."
His phone rang. He grimaced and reached for it. "Grissom...yeah..."
Sara hesitated, not sure if she should wait for him to finish the call, but the conversation went abruptly technical, and she got up and left quietly. She put away the project she'd been working on, and clocked out; driving home, she kept going over Grissom's words.
I guess she was the person who burned him. Sara stopped for a red light, beginning to be aware of the sadness pressing on her chest. Well, it explains a lot. Like why he couldn't take a risk on Sara herself.
She had to admit that his caution had a basis in logic. People changed; there was no way to guarantee that even the best relationship would last forever. But I don't think he understands how I feel. She kept remembering that photograph, a young man with light in his eyes, arms around what he thought was going to be his future. If it were me...he'd never get rid of me. A small smile, half-sad, half-iron, crossed her face. Too bad for both of us that it's not.
Grissom sat in his office for a long time after shift was over, ostensibly doing his interminable paperwork, but in reality thinking. Sara had slipped away before he could tell her to stay that morning, and in truth his colleague's call had taken some time. Now his thoughts kept shifting between the present and the past, between one woman and the other.
He could still remember, when he tried--and he didn't try often--what it had been like. He'd had his life ahead of him, and a lover who he thought was as devoted to him as he was to her. For a little while, he'd floated on that bliss, adoring the sweet, charming woman who had agreed to marry him. She wasn't as smart as he was--he knew that--but she was by no means stupid, and he already knew that he would find few women willing to accommodate his job and his hobbies, let alone one he could feel for.
Except she hadn't. She'd met him for lunch one afternoon and told him coolly that she wasn't willing to put up with him coming home late most days and smelling of chemicals or worse, that she wanted children but wanted their father to be there for them, that she'd rethought the whole thing and he was out of the question. And she'd put his ring on the table and walked out of his life.
It was the first time as a coroner that he called in sick, and the last. Her abrupt about-face didn't astonish him as much as the casual cruelty of it; Grissom had known Irene was selfish, but it hadn't bothered him, it was just the way she was. But he hadn't known her to be cruel.
From the perspective of nearly a quarter-century more of life, he could look with a certain compassion on his younger self, could now feel relief at having avoided what would probably have been a short and disastrous marriage. But the incident had taught him a lesson he still remembered--that his personality and habits were not things easy to live with. Probably even less so now.
Ironically enough, Grissom remembered, Irene had gotten married a couple of years later, to a Deaf man, a teacher. The marriage had lasted not quite five years.
In his mind's eye he saw Irene again, as she was now, older and a little harder around the edges; Sara towered over her. Sara--
He'd been appalled that past evening to see Irene trying to intimidate his CSI into handing over that necklace. What he'd told Sara had been true; what he hadn't mentioned was that after their breakup, his mother had been no more than polite to Irene despite the younger woman's best efforts to keep their friendship. He knew for certain that Robin would never have given Irene anything that had been precious to her. And the necklace had been. He'd bought it for his mother himself, while he was in college. He could still remember the delight on her face when she'd first seen it.
Giving it to Sara had been an impulse, but an appropriate one. Complicated, delicate, beautiful, rewarding--it was so like her in a way. And, deep down, he was warmed by the thought that she now owned something that had been important to him. And you would have approved, wouldn't you, Mom? His mouth quirked at the thought. He'd told Sara the truth, his mother would have liked her. He regretted, now, that he'd never get the chance to introduce the two women. Robin would have loved Sara, her fierceness, her intelligence, her humor....
Sara. She was the antithesis of Irene--driven, generous, straightforward. That was part of his helpless attraction to her, he admitted. Sara had her secrets, but she made no pretense about how she felt. At least she didn't. Not until I drove her to it.
He exhaled ruefully, rubbing absently at the facial hair that still occasionally felt new. Seeing Irene again had brought up a lot of things, true. It also underscored just how much he wanted Sara. How much he needed her. Her passion for justice, her dry humor, her bottomless compassion, the obsessions that he understood because they were his own. She had changed, but so had he.
And something had shifted, recently. Grissom had never wanted to see her defeated and shamed in the police station waiting room, but finding her there had shown him something important. Until then, he had never really thought of her as anything but magnificently self-sufficient. No matter what happened, she seemed to carry on, and that was one reason why he had shied away from something deeper for so long--he didn't think she needed him, needed anybody.
But the woman who had sat so silently in the darkness needed someone, and while Grissom knew that almost any of her friends would have fit the bill then, it had been him. That vulnerability offered him a hope that he could be what she needed, that a relationship between them would not be one-sided and fleeting. The idea that she might actually need him filled him with a strange urgency, making his own need stronger.
If she still wants a relationship. There was the crux of it. He just didn't know.
He picked up the phone.
See Chapter 15