Title: Full Circle
Authors: GeekLoveFan and ScullyAsTrinity
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: …:::Crickets:::…:::Leslie perks up out of bushes with net::: OHHHHH! CRICKETS!!! :::Holly's head pops up::: CRICKETS!?!?! WHERE!?!?!
GeekLove's A/N: GeekLoveFanandScullyasTrinity is, big surprise, GeekLoveFan and ScullyasTrinity working together. Yes, folks, the Yankee and the Southerner, the Bostonian and the Tennesseean, the Democrat and the Republican--we have teamed up to write some (hopefully) hella good fiction. We are complete G/S shippers, so if you're not up for angstiness, fluff, and sap, you might want to just run screaming from this story as quickly as humanly possible. As for our technique in writing, we are writing the first and last chapters together, and we will alternate writing the chapters in between. We hope you enjoy.
Scully's A/N: Love you Holly, but never ever call me a Yankee. :::grumbles about Jeter:::
GeekLove's A/N: I hate the Yankees.
Scully's A/N: Good! We done?
GeekLove's A/N: Yes.
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For Las Vegas, it was frigid. The temperature had plunged as the sun did, dropping from seventy to a freezing forty-three degrees. The sudden change in temperature had thrown the night shift team for a loop, leaving them shivering the middle of the woods, gathering evidence with fingers that had gone numb.
Nick Stokes tried in vain to return the circulation to his icy digits by blowing warm air into them. All his attempts served to do was chap his skin, and he swore, bending over to snap pictures of trampled weeds.
"Ever experienced a Nor'Easter?" Sara called over to her co-worker.
Nick paused in his evidence retrieval. "Can't say I have."
"Then you don't know what cold is." Sara responded, Nick's face breaking out in a grin.
Warrick had prompted Greg to climb a large oak tree to retrieve a swatch of fabric which was blowing in the breeze, held tightly by the stiff branches. The older CSI stifled a grin as Greg whimpered and attempted to crawl over the gnarly wood on his knees. He mumbled something about hazing and shut up.
Sara was bagging a grainy substance on the other side of the tree; she did nothing to stifle her laughter, letting it bubble out of her. Her own good humor caused Warrick to laugh as well, watching as Greg attempted to get the evidence into the plastic bag without falling and breaking his neck.
"Alright!" Nick called from the other side of the field. "Let's get this back to Grissom."
Every member of nightshift was working on one case, save for Catherine and Grissom. Griss was stuck at the office tying up loose ends on piles of paperwork, while Catherine had the night off.
Warrick and Sara assisted Greg in dismounting from the tree, they packed up their gear and headed back to the lab. It was quite a drive back, and both Sara and Greg fell asleep on the way.
Once they had parked the Denali, they tried to retrieve their kits from the trunk, which was stuck. It took a good ten minutes to get the hatch opened, the wind having picked up, thwarting many of their attempts. They could barely hear each other speak over the voice of the gusts, could barely see with all of the sand and dust being thrown in their eyes. It would have been easy to reach over the back seat and grab the kits, but they would have had to leave the difficult task of unsticking the trunk for another time, and Warrick and Sara decided to tackle it while they had the time. After several attempts of throwing their bodies against the cold metal, the hatch clicked open, nearly taking off Warrick's head.
Back at the lab, the four CSIs went in separate directions as they logged their evidence and began analysis.
Still shivering in her windbreaker, Sara dropped off the grainy substance she had collected at Trace. Walking back toward the break room for a cup of Greg's special brew, she passed Grissom in his office, barely visible behind a mountain of paperwork. Sara smiled in spite of herself. The poor guy must be miserable. She stopped in the doorway and tapped lightly on the doorjamb. "Hey, Griss?" she said in a low voice. As he looked up, her heart skipped a beat. He looked, for lack of a better description, adorable. His glasses had slid down his nose, and his hair was slightly rumpled, most likely from running his fingers through it in frustration. She berated her heart for speeding up to such a tempo.
"Mmm?" he said, distractedly.
"I was just headed to get some coffee. You look like you could use a cup. Want some?"
He dragged his attention away from the file he was looking at. "Yeah, sure," he said, finally looking at her in earnest. "Why are you wearing a windbreaker?" he asked.
Sara rolled her eyes. "Because it's in the forties out in the desert and I'm wearing short sleeves. To tell the truth, though, the thing didn't really live up its name. I'm still freezing." It was odd how people equated the desert with blinding heat. At night, it got pretty damn cold.
"Sara your nose and ears are all red," he commented. A look of concern flickered over his face for a split second before being replaced by the expressionless mask she knew so well. How could he even tell from that far away? Her heart tightened involuntarily. Thoughtful? Grissom being thoughtful? It must have been a slip of his tongue. She completely ignored the exaggerated somersault her stomach performed.
"Yeah, well," she said shyly. "I know I grew up in windy Frisco and went to college in Boston, but to tell the truth, I hate cold weather and my body doesn't react very well to it." She looked down, inexplicably embarrassed. She was sure, at that point, her cheeks were just as red as her ears and nose were.
"Oh..." Grissom said mildly, unsure how to respond. "Well, yeah, coffee would be great." He didn't bother to thank her, the soft tone of his voice already conveying his gratitude.
Sara stepped back into the hallway, exasperated with herself for even stopping by his office. What had she been trying to do? Things between her and Grissom had been...strained, to say the least, ever since her near-DUI. Why was she even bothering? He had made it quite clear that there would never be anything between them, and now she was pretty sure their friendship was shot to hell, too. Why try to fix it now? 'Why fix it now?' She berated herself. 'Because he's the only one who can-' She stopped her train of thought before it even left the station and made her way quickly down the hall.
She stepped into the break room and quickly poured two cups of coffee, determined to drop Grissom's coffee by his office and get back to her evidence as quickly as possible. No words, don't speak to him. Do not, Sara Sidle, let him draw you in.
When she got back to Grissom's office, he unexpectedly beckoned her in. "Sit down," he said, gesturing toward the couch. He walked around his desk and closed the door. What was this? She didn't particularly care what it was and any notion of getting back to her evidence was quickly lost.
As she sat down, Grissom stepped back and picked up an old UNLV sweatshirt that was lying on his desk. He handed it gently to her and said, "Here, put this on." Stunned, she pulled off her windbreaker and replaced it with the heavier sweatshirt. Her heart fluttered as she slipped the shirt over her head. It smelled of him. She watched wordlessly, wide-eyed, as Grissom opened the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet, pulled out an afghan, and placed it around her shoulders. He placed her coffee in her hands and said, "Drink." She brought the mug up to her lips and then stopped, her eyes darkening, deep creases forming in her forehead.
Wait, what... what exactly was happening. She wasn't sure if he could detect it but her head was spinning at the speed of light. He ignored her, and then... acted as if she were a fragile piece of...
"Griss, what's going on?" She asked. Her coffee now forgotten. The proximity to him having warmed her from the second he sat next to her. His brow creased as he tried to form an answer.
He sat back on the couch, a picture of relaxation, seeming to her at ease with their closeness. If she had bothered to place her ear to his chest, she would have heard his heart thumping so rapidly that it might burst. "You were cold." Grissom stated, as if the three simple words would explain his random, sweet gesture.
It was bullshit. "You can't do this you know. You can't act as if I don't exist and the do something..." She trailed off, not quiet sure she wanted to tread such deep waters if she wasn't sure she could swim in them. She wanted to be sickened with his behavior, with her own willingness to accept his behavior as truth. Such are the weaknesses of being in love, blind to what's really going on.
"Do something..." He pressed on.
"So sweet." She spit it out, suddenly finding her coffee intriguing. Her throat screamed as she gulped down the hot liquid. It settled heavily in her stomach. Sweet, it was true, possibly one of the most thoughtful things he had ever done for her. Her mind was suddenly pulled to a time when she had done much the same, placing a blanket over his shoulders, feeding him hot chocolate and scientific conversation.
Funny, how things come full circle.
Grissom followed suit, sipping idly from his coffee, still perfectly at ease. "I didn't know saving you from pneumonia was considered sweet these days, but I'll take what I can get."
"Ahhh, what you can get." Sara nearly laughed at the irony of the situation. "I've given you much more to go on these past few years, but you choose a case of the chills as an opportunity to be close to me. I see. I have you all figured out Grissom." Another sip from her coffee mug found her leaning back on the couch as well.
Cupping both of his hands around the warm mug, he inhaled the fragrant steam rising from the cup. "Do you now?"
"No." Came her prompt reply, still his hands as he once more raised the mug to his lips.
He nodded as sipped his coffee, all the while keeping his eyes trained solidly on her. He had expected her to turn away, but instead, she held his gaze. It seemed as if they were daring each other to look away. Sara blew against the surface of her coffee, as a physicist knowing that it wouldn't really help to cool the beverage, and they both looked away. Sara's eyes fell on his specimen jars, her brain telling her that she'd seen them hundreds of times, look at something else.
Grissom stared into his coffee mug. She had asked a damn good question. What was going on? He knew that this was out of character for him, but the sight of her, shivering in his doorway, yet still concerned enough about his well-being as to offer to get him coffee, had moved him. When she had headed off to the break room after coffee, he had dug out the sweatshirt almost without thinking.
Launching himself back into reality, he spoke to her. "What's so hard about figuring me out?"
If the moment had been less charged, Sara might have burst out laughing at the absurdity of the question. As it was, she just swallowed hard, then whispered, "You're an enigma, Grissom." She paused, considering whether or not to continue. "I don't know what you want." His eyes met hers, and she looked into them, unblinkingly. "I don't think you know what you want, either." She said this last with a courage she did not feel.
She had the urge to leave his office then, for she knew that he would stew over her words, attempting to pick them apart and examine them. It would have been good too, because he would have eventually seen that he didn't need to examine them, he could have then them at face value. That was how she had intended them.
They stayed like that, eyes locked, neither willing to be the first to look away, for what seemed like eons. Finally, Grissom blew out a loud sigh as he wiped his sweaty palms down the front of his pants. "You're wrong," he murmured. "I know exactly what I want."