"It's sad, isn't it, doc? Guys like us. Couple of middle-aged men who've allowed their work to consume their lives."
Dr. Lurie stops at the door when Grissom starts talking. Although he doesn't turn around, he's listening.
"The only time we ever touch other people is when we're wearing our latex gloves."
He turns around and makes eye-contact with Grissom.
"We wake up one day and realize that for fifty years we haven't really lived at all. But then, all of a sudden…we get a second chance. Somebody young and beautiful shows up. Somebody…we could care about. She offers us a new life with her…but we have a big decision to make right? Because we have to risk everything we've worked for in order to have her. I couldn't do it…but you did."
Dr. Lurie averts his eyes.
"You risked it all…and she showed you a wonderful life, didn't she? But then she took it away and gave it to somebody else…and you were lost. So you took her life. You killed them both and now you have nothing."
Dr. Lurie, who nods, says, "I'm still here."
"Are you?"
Sara stood in disbelief as she watched Grissom sitting at the table in the interrogation room.
Did he really just say that?
Unbeknownst to Grissom, Sara had been on the other side of the glass the whole time. She had heard it all. Now she knew why he turned down her dinner invitation. He couldn't risk his work just to be with her.
No wonder he's so lonely.
The pain of hearing that she wasn't worth the risk pierced her body like a thousand knives.
Sara left the room after standing there for a few minutes, watching the man that she had loved for so long. She made her way to the parking lot and found her car. She got in and locked the doors. She sat there, unsure of what to do.
Should she tell him that she heard what he said?
Or should she just keep it quiet?
Tears started to fill in her eyes making it hard for her to see. She just sat there letting the tears fall, getting her shirt a little wet. She finally started her car and drove to CSI HQ.
Sara found Catherine sitting on a bench in the locker room obviously pissed that they couldn't convict Lurie for murdering Debbie Marlin.
What a disturbing case that turned out to be. They all noticed the resemblance.
The dark hair. The pale skin. Their faces.
Debbie Marlin could have easily been mistaken for Sara.
The case really took its toll on everyone, especially Grissom. They could see him unraveling by the minute. He took a triple shift and had nothing to show for it. Every time he saw Debbie Marlin be could see Sara in her place. It made him shudder at the thought.
Catherine looked up when she heard the footsteps of someone entering the locker room. "Hey…are you alright?" She asked when she saw Sara's face.
"No…not really," Sara replied, taking a seat next to Catherine.
"You want to talk about it?"
"As you know, I went to watch Grissom and Brass interrogate Lurie. Well, when Lurie got up to leave, Grissom said some things. About not being able to risk his work to be with this girl, who happened to be me and all this other stuff. He didn't know that I was there, on the other side of the glass."
"Yeah, Brass told me about that. You want to know what I think?"
"Sure."
"I think that he told Lurie all that stuff because he knows what it's like. Here they are, both of them are middle-aged men, to them, their work is everything. They're both, in some ways, emotionally unavailable, until a beautiful woman comes along. She offered them the world and everything in it. And both of them had to decide which was more important to them, their work or her. Because, being with her meant that they had to risk everything they had worked for. They only difference between the two of them is that Grissom didn't take that risk."
Sara nodded and started to cry again. Catherine pulled her into a hug and let Sara cry on her shoulder. Catherine hadn't been there when Grissom and Brass interrogated Lurie, but, she could feel Sara's pain.
"Grissom can be so stupid sometimes," Catherine said.
And it was true.
A/N: Well, this is my very first CSI fan fic, so I hope you like it.
