A/N: This is probably what you're all waiting for, so you better like it.
Cake was cut and eaten. A dance contest had been held and the winners received the centerpieces. There was a mad dash for the bouquet as Polexia tossed it over her shoulder. It fell into the outstretched arms of her new stepdaughter Elizabeth. One dress was ripped and one maid (Elsa, of course) had fainted from dehydration and an ambulance had to be called. The wedding was finally, mercifully over.
Meanwhile, Sara couldn't wait to get out of her dress, not to mention the sandals that had somehow grown teeth and were biting into her feet. She knew she was going to have blisters the size of Texas for days afterwards. After helping Elizabeth, Sophie and Megan tie aluminum cans and white sneakers to the bumper of the getaway car (not to mention painting Wiley and Polly Just Married on the rear window) and waving off the newlyweds as they headed to the airport to board a plane to their honeymoon destination, Sara could almost taste her pajamas.
"Sara," Grissom caught her by the arm, squeezing very gently as she was limping to the family wing.
"Yeah?" she answered sleepily.
"I…I just wanted to tell you…" Grissom looked as if he was chewing his tongue.
"Gris, I hate to sound rude, but could you spit it out? I'm dead on my feet here."
"You looked stunning tonight," he revealed.
"Stunning?" Sara repeated.
"You…I didn't realize how…how good you looked in pink. I love you in pink."
Sara's breath caught in her chest. Did he just say I love you? "Thanks, Gris. Oh, and you in the tux? You underestimate yourself. Very suave."
Grissom chuckled a bit, "Thank you. Good night."
"'Night."
She felt his eyes on her as she opened the door of the family wing and slipped inside.
It was nearly four hours later and the dead of night. Sara's Place slept but its namesake didn't. Sara Sidle still hadn't gotten out of that stupid pink dress. The sandals were off and discarded in a faraway corner as soon as she opened the door of the family wing, but she felt trapped by this dress now, this horrible garment she had dreaded wearing since the second she saw it on the hanger. She couldn't bring herself to take it off, for some reason.
She was pacing in her room, music on low, musing over the happenings of the night. She'd found a friend in Maaike and Daphne, too. She learned that blue-eyed men were noble and a certain blue-eyed man not only had "eye love" for her and was also not a bad dancer. A twenty-nine year old usher had a secret mission of "looking out" for her. She had gotten to the bottom of Wiley's many marriages and divorces and supposedly her sixteen-year-old niece was the next bride. Oh, and Grissom had practically told her he loved her.
Sara made fists with her feet in the shag carpeting and sucked in air through her teeth. She wanted to get out of the dress, but she felt like she needed to do something first. Like…what? She wasn't hungry—no need to go to the kitchen. She wasn't cold—a sweater would not help her. Even though she was dead tired, she didn't want to go to sleep. Slipping out of the dress and crawling under the covers seemed like a chore.
She sat on her bed and stared at the clock. One in the morning. Phil and Eavan—who were one of the winners in the dance contest—were no doubt in their grand bedroom, sleeping beside one another like they always had for the past thirty-seven years. The nieces were all conked out in Wiley's old bedroom: Kirya in a cot on the floor, Sophie and Megan curled up in the big bed and Elizabeth, still clutching the bridal bouquet, in the trundle bed. Sara knew this because she had peeked in on them no less than twenty minutes ago.
She contemplated calling Nick to talk to him about the wedding and about Grissom and what Maaike had said but he would probably be right in the middle of a shift now. And Sara wasn't really in the mood to talk. She reached for The Da Vinci Code and was able to read about a page before closing the book in frustration.
Sara sighed and leaned back onto the daybed. She thought about when she had danced with Grissom. How his hands had cradled her ever so gently, the quietness of his steps…how they were so close and in sync, they were almost one heartbeat. That had been amazing. She had felt so…human, so real…
Suddenly, she felt as if she had been shot through the head with a diamond bullet. Sara's eyes went wide and she leapt off her bed. She knew what she had to do before getting out of this wretched pink dress.
Climbing the stairs with blistered feet, Sara made her way towards Gil Grissom's door. She knew he would be awake. He had to be, or else her plan would be ruined. Taking a deep breath, Sara rapped on the door in rapid succession. No answer. She waited a minute and then tried again. He answered the door mid-knock. Her fist was frozen in the air.
"What?" Grissom asked, prompting her.
"Did you feel it?" Sara asked breathlessly.
"Feel what?" Grissom gave Sara his famous Look.
"When we danced…it was like we were one person. Our heartbeats were in tune with each other. Everything around us…please, Grissom, say you felt the same way?"
"Sara, you've had too much to drink. You're drunk."
Surprised, Sara shook her head. "I am very sober, Grissom, sober as you are. Just please, listen to me. It's all coming together tonight, you and me and…tonight made me realize that I love you."
Grissom remained silent. Sara continued,
"All these years that we danced around each other and tonight we stopped and danced together instead. We always came so close but backed away but tonight, we held on until the song was over. It might seem like we missed our chance after all these years but I figured out it's not true! Grissom, I'm still in love with you!"
Sara was out of breath. There. She'd said it. It was out in the open. He knew how she felt now. He could accept this or slam the door in her face and Sara wouldn't care. At least now she can get out of the dress.
"When you held me tonight," Sara had tears in her voice, "it took me back. To what we used to be. And I didn't know until you let go that I missed it so much. All I could think about after that was how I couldn't wait for you to hold me like that again."
"Sara…"
"I love you, Gil Grissom."
Grissom blinked his blue eyes a few times. That was the first time she'd ever called him Gil. It excited him. "Well," said he, after a pause, "I'll say one thing."
Sara held her breath.
"Cecilia will be delighted when she finds out."
Relief swept across Sara's angelic face as Grissom took her by the hand into his room and closed the door behind her.
They made love that night—wild, fervent love, everything they had been holding back for the past six years. Sara found it unbelievable, having Grissom all to herself. His arms, his hands, his lips. Kisses and nibbles all over her body, her fingers running through his hair, her nails digging into his back. His hands cupping her butt and his mouth around her nipples. When he entered her, swollen and rigid, Sara let out a gasp as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice water over her.
"What?" Grissom halted briefly, breathless.
"N-no, don't stop," Sara ordered. "Please, don't stop."
Sara clutched the headboard as ecstasy overthrew her. She gasped and moaned into the pillow beside her so she wouldn't make too much noise. The last thing she needed was the friends of her brother hearing her scream "Oh, God, yes!". She and Grissom reached their climax together and Sara was so happy she could have cried.
When it was over, they lay in bed, arms around each other, hearts pounding so hard it seemed there was only one, not two. It felt so surreal and Sara was afraid if she let him go, everything she'd felt before would slip away.
"God," sighed Grissom.
"Hmm," Sara said in response. She didn't want to ruin the moment by talking. She snuggled closer to him and Grissom stroked her hair tenderly.
"So tell me," Grissom said, not in the mood for silence, "how did you end up with a name like Sara Sunshine?"
"Oh," Sara said disgustedly. "Who told you about that?"
"One guess."
"Cecilia," they said simultaneously and laughed nervously.
"Sooo, how did you get the name Sara Sunshine?" Grissom pressed.
"How did you get the name Gilbert?" Sara countered. That particular name always made her think of the Johnny Depp movie What's Eating Gilbert Grape? It was highly unlikely that was what Grissom was named for.
"If you must know," Grissom said, reluctantly at first, "my mother named me Gilbert, solely based on the fact that it means noble. For the record, my father hated it. I was supposed to end up a fourth—Bartholomew Tinford Grissom the fourth, to be exact. He was livid that my mother didn't abide by his wishes. Thank God the name will die with him if he hasn't already."
Sara had to agree, Bartholomew Tinford Grissom was a helluva mouthful.
"But my mother, the artist," Grissom continued, "decided her child just had to have his own name, something unique. She found Gilbert in a book one day and a week later, I was so-named."
"That's beautiful," Sara smiled. "Noble." Marry a man with blue eyes, Daphne had said. They're more noble.
"I was named Sunshine because I wipe the clouds from the sky with my smile," she said, "or at least, that's what my dad always told me. 'Sara' is just what I call my professional name. I was named after the house."
"Ah, I see. 'Sidle on Down to Sara's Place' wasn't an accident, then."
"That stupid slogan. No, the house was called Sara's Place when my parents bought it. They were trying to think of a new title for it and when I came along, my mom wanted to make my first name Sara."
"You wipe the clouds from the sky with your smile," Grissom repeated. "I don't think I've ever heard a truer statement. When you walked back into my life six years ago...that's the first thing I thought of: a ray of sunshine."
She looked up at him and kissed him. He kissed back. They were treading on dangerous ground now, and they both knew it. The inevitable question hung over their heads: What would happen when they got back to Vegas?
"I should go back to my room," Sara said, pulling away. She shifted beneath the covers and sat up. Just as her feet hit the floor, Grissom's hand snaked up her arm and held her for a few seconds.
"Stay as long as you'd like, Sunshine."