Sara felt like she was on top of the world. She had missed dancing and she hadn't even realized it. Her fouettés were far from flawless, but she was doing them nonetheless. She would have considered it a total triumph if she made one rotation without falling on her ass or breaking an ankle, but the fact that she got 4 complete rotations in before her supporting ankle started giving out was nothing short of miraculous, in her mind. She bent down and massaged her ankle, patting it gratefully. 'Okay,' she thought to herself. 'Now you can start choreographing something therapeutic.' After her near-DUI, she knew she had to find some sort of therapy, but the idea of seeing a shrink did not exactly appeal to her. Her privacy was too vital, too integral to her existence. Besides, what would she say? "Uh, yeah...I'm passionately, madly in love with my boss, and even though I think the feeling is mutual, he is a total ass who says he doesn't know 'what to do about this.' So I drink to drown the pain." Yeah, right. And if frogs could fly, they wouldn't bump their butts on the ground... So, in lieu of a therapist, cirrhosis of the liver, or wrapping her car around a tree, she decided that she would try dance as therapy. Couldn't hurt, at any rate.
She had chosen a beautiful, haunting Philip Glass piece for her dance. It was called "Facades." Walking over to the stereo, she popped the CD in and as the music of Philip Glass filled the studio, she closed her eyes and started improvising, letting the music move her...
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Grissom's mouth was hanging open, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard Julie Andrews' voice saying "Close your mouth, Michael. We are not a codfish." He had loved Mary Poppins when he was little...
He didn't know how long he had been standing there, watching the angelic figure in the studio. She had been doing some sort of spin thing, then she reached down and rubbed her ankle. He briefly wondered if she was hurt, but then she walked over to the stereo and popped a CD in. She closed her eyes and began dancing, at first aimlessly, and then, seeming to find some sort of order, her body began moving with what could truly be called amazing grace. Gil Grissom was a man known to have a quote for every situation, but he could not have found words lovely enough to describe the sight before his eyes if his very life had depended upon it.
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Sara felt the music down to her very soul. She had chosen this piece because it captured almost perfectly how she felt about Grissom. It was haunting, passionate, and inescapably beautiful. With her eyes still closed, she thought of him as she danced. Those beautiful, deep blue eyes, the sound of his voice, the feel of his hands on her, the way he had called her 'honey...'
She felt a single tear slip from beneath her closed eyes. Not bothering to brush it away, she continued to dance through the pain...
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As Grissom stood at the window, some distant part of his brain warned him that he needed to move away before she saw him watching her. Their relationship may have gone seriously downhill over the past few months, but he still knew her well enough to know that she would die if she knew anyone—especially he—had been watching her. Even with that knowledge, he could not tear himself away from the beautiful sight he had encountered. He was transfixed.
"She's beautiful, isn't she?" Grissom jumped as Brass spoke up from next to him. Tearing himself away, Grissom scowled at his friend.
"Dammit, Jim, you scared the shit out of me. Where the hell have you been, anyway?"
"At work..." Brass explained, and then paused.
"Gil..."
Grissom rolled his eyes, afraid of what was coming.
"Yes, Jim?"
"Gil...you know I love you like a brother, right?" Seeing Grissom reluctantly nod, he continued. "You know damn well that I wouldn't normally get in your business, but as your friend, I'm going to tell you this now, and you better listen up before it's too late. You have fucked up big time, my friend. You are a total ass when it comes to Sara. Grissom, she is in love with you." Grissom started to interrupt, but Brass cut him off. "No, dammit, it's not some stupid-ass crush. Don't even try that shit with me. She is a grown woman, and she is in love with you. And I know you well enough to know that you're in love with her, too. Hell, Gil, the entire lab knows that." Seeing the look on his friend's face, he continued. "Yeah, Gil, it's that obvious. You're not fooling anyone...except Sara—and if that isn't irony, then I don't know what is. She has no clue. She thinks you hate her. You've pushed her away for so long that I don't know if you'll ever be able to repair the damage, but you better damn well start trying. And if you don't ever listen to another thing I say, you need to listen to that. I don't want to hear any ridiculous excuses about careers and age differences and what's best for her. Your careers will be fine, the age difference matters to absolutely no one except for you, and as far as what's best for her...don't you think that perhaps you should let HER be the judge of that? You are meant to be together, and unless you want to be miserable for the rest of your life, then you need to do something before it's too late. Now, are we going to work out or not?" Brass did an abrupt about-face and left Grissom behind, even more slack-jawed than before.
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As the music came to a close, Sara stopped to catch her breath. She was in excellent physical condition for her age, but still...ballet was extremely demanding. She reached for her bottle of water and a towel as her mind started to wander through possible choreography for her "therapy dance," as she had begun to think of it. She wanted it to be a complete catharsis for her, so that each and every time she danced it, she would feel cleansed afterward. 'As if, Sidle,' she thought idly. 'As if you could ever be fully cleansed of your feelings for him...' Putting the bottle down with a sigh, she tossed the towel onto her bag and went back to the center of the wood floor to continue dancing.
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Jim and Grissom hit the weight benches again. Grissom was feeling pretty...flustered after seeing Sara, so this time he was really glad to have Brass spotting him. He could just see himself trying to bench press some ridiculous weight, having a daydream about Sara, and then dropping the bar onto his chest and crushing his ribcage. That'd be sure to make for some fun conversation at the office.
Brass was pretty exhausted, too, and they decided to call it quits after only 15 minutes or so more. They gathered up their things and headed to the door, slowing down by the window to the dance studio. Grissom gazed inside at Sara. Her attire didn't leave much to the imagination. She was wearing a classic black leotard and pink tights, but he found it interesting that the feet were cut off the tights. She had pushed them back up to her calves. He found it strangely sexy-looking. Then again, he found everything about her sexy-looking. For the first time, he noticed her pointe shoes. They were well-worn. She had obviously been dancing for awhile. 'Duh, Gil,' he muttered in his mind. 'Did you think she just waltzed in here one day and decided she was going to be a ballerina?' Over her leotard and tights she wore a pair of grey shorts. They looked as if they had once been sweatpants, but were cut off at some point. Near the waistband he saw the word Harvard in faded lettering. The shorts were extremely short, and somehow their length—or lack thereof—made those long legs look even longer. Before he could stop himself, he thought of those legs wrapped around—
"Gil!"
"Huh?" All of this had run through his head in less than a second. He snapped his head around to see a smirk on Jim's face.
"You better wipe the drool off your chin and get out of here before she sees you, my friend. You've pissed her off enough lately, don't you think?"
"Uh...yeah. Let's go." Grissom and Brass walked into the bright Vegas sunshine and as they separated to go their respective vehicles, Brass called out to Grissom, "Remember what I said. You'll never forgive yourself if you don't."
Grissom knew he was right.
TBC...