Chapter 3

Of course, it wasn't until Sara walked into her apartment that the questions really began to slam her. Everything from 'how will I know if this is going to get worse?' to 'how can I get this goo from the molds out of my ears,' to 'when will the silly things get here' seemed to be rolling through her mind at light speed. She didn't like not knowing what was happening; she liked what she did know even less.

She slept very little that day, although the insomnia was more closely related to her whirling thoughts than to the constant hum which – as the doctor had advised – was minimized by some soft music. Still, sleep didn't come. She tried all her usual tools, ranging from a bubble bath to a stiff shot of Southern Comfort. She wasn't comforted.

She had lost part of her hearing – one of her five senses – and as logically as she reasoned with herself that she still had four more and most of that first one, she just couldn't help wondering what she was missing. While the explosion might have been what caused her to notice the loss, and indeed had furthered the nerve damage, it had by no means been the only reason for her losing hearing. How long had it been going on? Why in hell hadn't she thought to ask the doctor.

By the time she was scheduled for work, she was far more buzzed on coffee than she was tired from the day spent chasing fears in circles. She hadn't been able to keep down any dinner due to nerves being on edge, and above and beyond it all she was furious with herself for being so shaken by something that wasn't even new. Nor, had the doctor informed her, was it news. Apparently almost fifty percent of adults her age had some level of loss, and a full twenty percent had more. Most of them didn't even know it, because testing was not common and the signs were so gradual that many people missed them. None of that mattered to Sara, though. What mattered was that soon she would have pieces of plastic in her ears, complete with microphone and amplifier, and she would officially have to admit that she was handicapped.

And soon – very soon – she would have to tell her boss.

God, that would be the worst of it. She was already making an effort to avoid the man following his rejection weeks before. The last thing in the world she wanted was to become his personal pity project. She knew Grissom well enough to know that he was kind; he wouldn't hold this against her. He would fight for her job, and he would accept and protect her. He was a better supervisor than he suspected; but she didn't want a good supervisor. She wanted him to care for her without pity thrown into the mix. She wanted to get his friendship fairly, not by default or by guilt.

Hell, she didn't want to tell him at all.

But if she put what she wanted in one hand, and spat in the other, it was quite likely that one had would be dripping far sooner than the other. She had never received what she wanted; she got what she got, and life wasn't fair. She didn't expect it to be, but frankly she thought she'd had enough. When would she have her fair share of misery for this lifetime? And when would she get past the stupid, useless self-pity.

She passed by the locker room this evening and headed straight for Grissom's office. She'd learned that the best way to get through the tough stuff was to just get it done. He would know soon enough, she decided. She might as well get this over-with.

And yet, it wasn't as easy as it usually was to lean against his door jam and peek around to see if he was there. He was, of course, and buried behind a stack of folders that was at least six inches high. She watched as he sighed, took his glasses off, and rubbed at his closed eyes. He shook his head then, as though trying to remain alert, and went back to perusing the information in a folder.

"Griss?" she asked softly.

Nothing.

"Grissum?" she called out a bit louder.

Still nothing. She knew that he tended to get involved in his work, but this was ridiculous. She wasn't going to start yelling at the man to gain his attention. Instead, she stepped through the doorway to his office – something she never did without invitation – and walked right up to the desk.

When he saw her, he actually jumped. "Sara!"

"It's me," she said sarcastically. This visit was hard enough without his making it harder. "It has been since I came to the door."

"I didn't hear you," he muttered, and his face was strangely downcast. She might have noticed the expression, but his words took the breath from her. Not hearing wasn't something she was even willing to joke about.

"Yeah, well, I need to talk to you for a minute," she told him.

"Sara, I'm glad you came by. Please, come in and close the door."

Now that was a surprise. He hadn't invited her anywhere since before the explosion. In fact, he seemed almost as eager to avoid her – and everyone else for that matter – as she was to avoid him. Cautiously, she stepped back to the door and pulled it closed, then she took the seat across from his desk. Just as she was trying to find a way to tell him what she had found at her appointment, he spoke.

"Sara, I wanted to speak to you about this morning."

Her thoughts once more stopped in a track. "Sure," she said, thinking that he just might make this easier for her after all. "I wanted to talk to you about that."

"I don't think we should," he said curtly. Then, his voice softened. "Sara, I'd rather it not be known that I was at the clinic, and I certainly don't want anyone to know about the surgery. As I told you, it's minor. There's no reason to alarm anyone, and the last thing I need is for Ecklie to start getting into things. You know him; he'll take any weakness and exploit it."

Sara was taken aback. Given all that had happened that morning, she had honestly forgotten about running into Grissom. It wasn't that she didn't care – far from it – but that she simply had too much on her mind from her own visit with the doctor.

"If that's how you feel," she allowed, wondering if it were really that easy.

"It is," he told her simply. "Sara, I don't want a big deal made of this. It's nothing. Really. There's no reason to make it into something that it isn't."

Something in his statement caught her attention. "What's wrong?"

"It's not important. What's important is that this not become gossip for the locker rooms. I'm sure you understand."

Yes, she understood. She understood that he wasn't going to tell her a damned thing, and suddenly she didn't give a care. If he didn't want anyone's attention, then so be it. Further, she wouldn't be so weak as to concern him with her own disability. After all, if he could ignore health issues, he was setting quite a precedent. What was good for him was good for her; she wouldn't tell him a thing.

"Is that all?" she asked, not at all happy with the slight catch in her voice. She couldn't have said why it upset her so much that he'd cut off her interest before it had even begun. Perhaps it had to do with trust, or maybe just with pride. He should know better than to think she would run blabbing to anyone else about his health. She had more respect for him than that. She had more respect for herself. She also couldn't have pegged why she was so damned disappointed at not getting to talk over her own situation with her mentor. It wasn't as though he had been there for her anytime in the recent past. Hell, he hadn't been there for her for years. Still, she supposed that she had wanted to tell someone – anyone – and quite frankly she had nobody else to tell. This was something huge in her life, and yet there was not a single person who would care about it. No one. That bothered her more than she would admit.

"That's all," he told her. Then his gaze, which had never left her face throughout their discussion, seemed to intensify. "Unless you needed something. You came by, after all."

Too little, too late, she decided. "No," she lied. "There's nothing important."

"Why were you at the clinic?" he asked, and she almost thought there might be some genuine concern in his voice. Almost.

"Check up," she told him, which wasn't entirely a lie. It wasn't all of the truth, but it was as close as he was going to get. Her nerve had been thin coming into this discussion, and what little there had been was worn transparent by his uncaring demeanor. "It's not a big."

He nodded, but didn't look convinced. She really didn't care.

"If there's nothing else," she told him briskly, afraid that the knot in the back of her throat was going to give her away. Her eyes were burning, and she'd be damned if she'd cry over this situation at all, much less in front of him.

"No," he said thoughtfully.

"Then I'll get to work. I really need to change before assignments."

He nodded, and she left before he could even tell her good bye. Several deep breaths later she was next to her locker and trying to catch her breath. She would not cry. Not. She just wouldn't do it.

And she didn't. It took her a while to master the shaking sensation throughout her body, but she did it. Gradually the pain in her chest eased and her eyes were once more totally dry. Crisis averted; embarrassment delayed. With that small victory under her belt, she began to spin the dial on her locker. She had gone around three times before she realized that she had completely forgotten her combination.

It had been a hell of a week. Gil was only now coming to realize just how behind he had been as he tried to get things not only caught up, but far enough ahead that being out for a few days wouldn't cause the entire lab to crash. There were cases to tie up, files to manage, evidence to label, and court dates to reschedule. It was a tedious process, even working fifteen to eighteen hours a day. It was what was keeping him at his desk for hours at a time; hours like this one. He was on the opposite side now, his back to the door as he searched through a mental fog for what was next on his list of priorities. He hadn't slept more than occasionally since setting the date for his surgery.

As though he could sleep

The little time he spent in the field was an unqualified mess. He could only hear about half of the time, and even then the words tended to garble together. Speech reading was not as effective as he would have liked, and he developed a new appreciation for his mother's ability to manage it. Granted, she relied heavily on contextual clues and the pad of paper she was never without, but she still did more than he could hope to.

And yet he might have no choice. Even with the surgery, the best he could hope for was a return of most of his hearing and a delay of the inevitable. Otosclerosis wasn't curable, merely treatable. While treatment was absolutely necessary – immediately – if he wanted to retain any hearing at all, it wasn't a guarantee by any stretch of the imagination.

He wished it were.

So many things he wished. He wished that he had done this years before, when he'd first noticed the occasional lapses in consistent sound. He wished that he'd taken more time to enjoy the symphonies that he loved and the operas he respected. He wished that he'd listened to the birds a little more, and to the laughter of children rather than the screaming of suspects. He wished so much. He wished that he'd taken the time to know Sara before he'd become an old man who was losing his hearing. Hell, he just wished he could talk to her. The last week had been proof that he couldn't.

Granted, half of what he had happened between them had been a direct result of pure fear. He was afraid that she'd pity him, afraid that she'd let slip his secret. He was afraid that he'd never hear her voice again after the surgery. He'd never hear her say…

Well, it wasn't as though she really wanted to talk to him anyway. She'd done everything but quit in order to avoid him. He'd even attempted to talk to her, and she invariably walked away from his gentle attempts to gain her attention. Short of standing in front of her in a hallway or cornering her in the locker room, he really didn't have much choice about the situation. He didn't want to embarrass her, and truthfully he had no clue what he would say to her if he did.

But he wished he could figure it out.

His thoughts were interrupted by a tap on his shoulder, and as he whirled around he was faced with the image which had been haunting his thoughts. She was dressed in jeans and a silk blouse, and her face was smudged with something white. Heaven knew what she'd been working on; he hadn't had a chance to look over her progress notes on the current case.

"You're in another world lately," she muttered as he put a hand over his heart to try to keep it from flying out of his chest. She had scared the hell out of him; it was especially hard for him to hear people approaching from behind him.

"What do you want?" he asked rather sharply. He was still recovering from the shock she'd given him, but he immediately regretted his tone at the look on her face. "Sorry," he added lamely. "I didn't mean it that way."

She just nodded. "I wanted to know if you've finished that request for Greg's computer program," she told him. "He'd ask you himself, but he's afraid you'll do physical damage if you're interrupted. Apparently you're developing quite a reputation for it."

He felt his ears heat, but was defensive nonetheless. "If you mean I'm testy when my work is interrupted, then I'm afraid I'm guilty."

"Requisitions are your work," she said pointedly. "So what's the status?"

It took him a moment to recall what she was asking about. He had dealt with some damned many requisitions in the past week that they had become one blurred whole. "I'll have to find it," he admitted. "What was the name again?"

"It's…" But her voice trailed off into nothing, while her lips continued to move at full speed. Unfamiliar with the topic, he had no context to follow. Frustrated with his limitations, he resorted to anger.

"Look, I'll find it myself," he said as he turned his back on Sara and with her the situation. "When I have it done, I'll page you."

He went back to work, doing his best to calm the rage which came whenever he realized that this might be permanent; he might not be able to do his job for much longer. He certainly wouldn't be able to hide his condition much longer.

A hand on his arm pulled him around, and he turned to face a Sara who was at least as furious as he felt. The words were unclear, but the expression was more than obvious. She wasn't one to tolerate being dismissed, and he wasn't going to get away with it this time.

"… aren't the only one with a job to do!"

Gratefully he caught the last few words of her tirade. "I know that," he said on a sigh. "I'm just… overwhelmed. Sara, really, I'll get back to you."

"I'll believe it when I see it," she grumbled, and finally turned her back.

He went briefly back to his work, and then some instinct caused him to turn around. He caught her eye then, and more than a hint of speculation was in her expression. She knew, he thought, and then immediately dismissed the possibility. The only one who might put the signs together was Catherine, and he'd been careful to stay out of her way. She alone knew his mother, and with her the possibility that he might someday lose his hearing as well. There were disadvantages to long-time friendships, and one of them was trying to keep secrets from someone who knew you better than you knew yourself. But Sara didn't fall into that category. He had kept her safely at a distance, and she had no way of knowing what he was going through now. It was the way things were; they way they had to be.

She stood there a moment longer, and once more he saw her lips move and yet heard nothing. Frustrated beyond measure, he turned back to his work, hoping she would take the implied dismissal at face value. She had to; he couldn't spell it out for her. He didn't want to.

After a few moments he was engrossed in his work, and thoughts of Sara were driven from his mind. He didn't see the look of comprehension appear on her face, or the sad acceptance that followed. He didn't see her final acknowledgement of the situation as she turned to walk down the hall, and he definitely didn't see the single tear which she cried for him. The tear she wouldn't – couldn't – cry for herself.