Title: Throw it Back
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: CSI is nothing to do with me… yada yada yada
Spoilers: S5 and definitely 'Snakes'
Notes: Unbound challenge response; first and last lines provided, word limit of 1000, which I met, yay! I don't know why these lines prompted an angsty response, but they did. As always with my fics though, there's a glimmer of hope in there.
An upside down photo lay tattered on the floor. Sara picked it up, turning it round in her hands until she could look at it properly. Realizing what it was, her eyes flew to the empty spot on the wall that had once been covered by a photo frame.
"Damn," she muttered, cursing herself for not noticing that the frame had fallen, its contents spilled onto the floor, as she had brushed past the wall on the way to her bedroom earlier in the day. "Damn," she cursed again, as a piece of glass sliced into her finger when she tried to clear up the broken frame. She continued her task and threw everything into the trash before retreating to the bathroom to find a band-aid.
Walking back into the hall, she sighed as she contemplated the state of the photo. It used to be stored haphazardly in an old photo album but, when she'd finally settled into her apartment, she had decided to hang it on the wall. A photo of her graduation from Harvard, a reminder she had done something to be proud of, had achieved something. Now she was trying to decide whether it was worth re-hanging; how many times had she actually taken the time to look at it when it had been on the wall?
With another sigh, she took the photo into the living room and dropped it on the coffee table; it would be there for her to consider later. There was another reminder of her past on the coffee table, a letter from Berkeley. She had contacted them two months previously, asking how she could go about finishing her graduate studies. The abandoned course had always tormented her to some extent, not because she regretted her decision to switch to forensics and enter the 'real world' by getting a job, but because it signaled yet another thing in her life that she had never completed.
That brought her thoughts to something else that was unfinished – Grissom. Nothing was settled, she was no closer to letting go of her feelings and she still had no firm idea of his feelings in regard to her. She had slight insights, glimpses he'd shown her over the years, but nothing concrete. No matter how hard she pushed, his brick exterior didn't weaken enough to allow her to punch a hole.
She had tossed the ball into his court when she discussed the results of her PEAP counseling with him, but he hadn't thrown it back. She shouldn't have been surprised, he had always appeared to be selfish like that. Gil Grissom didn't believe in 'give and take', with him it was more a case of 'take and take'.
Her false bravado had almost faltered a few times since that discussion. He would look at her intently as he handed out assignments, almost urging her to say something, but she always looked away. He would check in on her as she was processing evidence, invading her personal space ever so slightly, but she would just take a step back, albeit after a moment of hesitation. No, if he wanted to talk, to settle things once and for all, he was going to have to initiate the conversation.
Grabbing a bottle of water from the kitchen, she slumped onto her couch and pondered her options. How long could she go on like this? Her inner demons were beginning to surface and the situation with Grissom compounded everything, pushing her close to the point where she would burst. She wasn't prepared to deal with her past, not yet, so she had to deal with Grissom, take that burden away so she had more energy to repress everything else.
The question was, how could she deal with him without pushing? She needed him to take the initiative, or she would always wonder what might have happened if she hadn't backed him into a corner.
As if someone, somewhere, had heard her silent pleas, her door buzzer sounded and she knew in her gut that it was him. The voice answering hers as she pressed the buzzer confirmed her theory and she took a deep breath before opening the door, hearing him jog to meet her, almost as if he knew she was tempted to close the door before he got there.
Stepping back to let him enter, she regarded him closely, noting the intensity in his eyes, the stiffness in his posture and the determination in his stride. Only two words found the courage to pass her lips.
"You came."
Depositing himself on the couch and beckoning for her to approach, he answered huskily, "So it would seem."
Fin