Ta-da. I updated! I really don't like this chapter much. It's 100 percent told from Grissom's POV, and it sort of summarizes what happens in about six months of Sara and Nick's relationship. I like the end, though
This chapter was entirely written about fifteen minutes before I went to bed on various nights.
This chapter contains no Grissom-bashing, but GSR shippers may like it a 'lil, because it suggests that he really has feelings for her. It's still NSR, though.
Twelve. That was the monthly average of Sara's dazzling grins. Grissom knew this for a fact, he counted. Seven. The days she had taken off to bury her brother. Two. The numbers of time he had actually feared for her life. Of course, he had other numbers that were of interest to him. Fifteen. The number of years between himself and Sara. Ten. The number of years he had known her.
One. The number of secrets she's shared with him. Zero. The number of times he's acted on instinct and admitted his feelings. One hundred thirty-two. The number of hours of sleep he's lost over her this calendar year alone. Thirty-three. The number of trivial details he knew about her. Like that she picked the almonds out of Rocky Road ice cream. Forty-nine. The number of his seminars she had attended while she was in college.
Grissom liked numbers. They were safe. One thing in the universe that didn't alter based on opinion, or politics. If you put the same math problem in front of four million fairly well educated people, they won't come up with four million different answers. Unlike a question like, "Does true love exist," or "Is there a God?" Bugs may be his first love- er, passion, but numbers were his second.
He knew that Sara Sidle was different. That's part of what drew him to her. Polar opposites and all that. She relished the why, and the what ifs of a situation, what made each new experience different. Nick was a good balance for her. He saw the facts the way they were, his professional focus rarely wavering. The subject of his Texan co-worker bought up a host of other numbers.
For example, the number twenty-six. That was the number of Sara's smiles directed at him the month after she returned to work. With that number brought the painful revelation that Nick made her smile more than he could, even when she was devastated. In his usual self-sacrificing way, Grissom martyred any respect he still had for himself by comparing himself to Nick. Thirty-five. The number of weeks they had been dating. Three. The number of times he had even lunch alone with Sara.
God, he felt infinitely stupid. He had tricked himself subconsciously into comparing himself to Nick. That was definitely not fair. For cripes sake, even the places where they had been born were completely opposite. But, mind over matter didn't apply in the depths of Grissom's brain, mainly because the mind was the matter. Sighing heavily, he tapped a pen on the bridge of his nose, facing the fact that he was in for a night of self-torture.
If Grissom hadn't been such a technical person, he'd have complained that it was unfair. Unfairness was for people who assumed that life was supposed to be fair in the first place.Nick was so energetic, whilst he was enigmatic. The young man he refused to refer to as his competitor, mostly because any prize they would be aiming for was already won, was bright and cheery, never say die. Grissom was morbid, negative, Gruesome Grissom.
That stupid little antagonist part of Grissom's brain reminded him that he once had Sara. She had wanted to try to be something better than a soul mate, a mind mate. Just like asking Britney Brunner out in high school, that ship had sailed. Though, Grissom commentated to himself, turning Sara down had been significantly more regretful than neglecting to ask a girl to the Winter Formal.
Thirty-three. The number of years since his first venture into the idea of 'love.' It hadn't worked out well. Obviously. Damnit, Grissom chided himself. Again with the numbers. No matter how fond he had been of the Arabic Numerals, they were certainly turning on him now, the traitors. Numbers had always been his friends, they always made sense. Except when applied to Sara and Nick's relationship. Grissom grunted in annoyance, and threw his pen across his home office.
There they were again, the blasted dancing figures. Sixty-five. Eleven. Nineteen hundred and eighty eight. It was almost funny. He could make them perfectly harmonize when on paper, in a complicated algebraic equation, but you can forget about it when they represented tangible things. One of his math teachers in school had been fond of saying, "Math's a language that everyone can speak." Gil found it suitable, then, that he wasn't very good at speaking anyway.
One. The number of times he had seen Nick and Sara dance together. It had been in the DNA lab. Greg's walkman lay forgotten, a tedious lecture on herpetological forensics blaring at a deafening level, if you were wearing the headphones. Nick had bet Warrick that he could dance to anything. He had won that bet. Twenty. The number of dollars he won from Warrick that day. Six-and-a-half. The number of hours it took Nick and himself to solve the B E they were working. One. The number of secrets Nick had told him that day. Ironically, it influenced him more than the one Sara had told him weeks before. Two. The number of carats in the diamond ring Nick was proposing to Sara with tonight.
Could this be the end? Yes, it could. Will it be the end? Naw. Leave a review! Oh, and I think I wanted to dedicate this to pick-a-wallflower and gypsy.. something or rather. I don't remember why, you must have reviewed nicely, and I apolgize for forgetting your SN Gypsy Whomever you are, I'm too lazy to check.
(One last thing. Ha-ha Amy! BMLYNM! Ha! Sorry. Esoteric joke)
