A Trial of the Heart: Chapter seven

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A house is not a home.
- Polly Adler –

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Grissom stepped back to allow Sara entrance to his townhouse with no small level of trepidation. Sara allowed him the act of inadvertent chivalry without comment, eyes instantly taking in her surroundings, contrasting the interior to dim recollections long undisturbed in her memory.

His townhouse was a dull, vague watercolour of his personality. The walls were plain white cinderblock, closing around a vast kitchen and living area. A towering pillar stood as the centrepiece of the room, branching off into an impressive breakfast bar.

The shades were partially drawn, casting the room in a dim light that only allowed elusive cracks of evening sunshine to filter through.

Minute quirks of his personality occasionally showed; in the glass display cases of carefully arranged butterflies, or the infinite array of literature scattered in an ordered kind of confusion on the bookshelves.

For the most part, it felt like a momentary haven, a place in the guise of a home. His office in the lab was a more apt tribute to his character.

Sara strode uncertainly inside, simultaneously drawing comfort and dismay from the sudden intimacy of the moment.

Grissom seemed oblivious to it, and immediately took to the breakfast bar; only pausing to ask her what would be suitable substitutes for meat in her meal. She took a seat at the counter, simply watching him work, admiring the deft movement of his hands and the strong broad line of his shoulders as he turned his back to face her.

It took her several moments to realise she hadn't thought of the incident since arriving in his house. Despite its lifeless appearance, she felt more comfortable there than in her own apartment.

Is it the place, she contemplated, or the company?

Sara scrambled backwards on her heels, eyes darting frantically around her apartment as she searched for some form of weapon. Dr. Wilson stalked towards her with an inordinate amount of calmness, drawing a slim, and sinister injection needle from within the folds of his jacket.

Sara swallowed, gazing behind him. Her first concern was the deliveryman—she had no idea what the doctor did to him. To the left of his unconscious form she spotted her cellphone on the counter.

"Come now, Sara", he said easily. "This will only hurt a second".

Sara bumped into the wall, managing to climb swiftly to her feet. She ran directly for the space behind him, diving towards her cellphone, or better yet the door, but he was too fast and moved with surprising fluency. She realised she had done what self-defence trainers warned against most of all; she had underestimated his lithe form, and now she was going to pay for it.

He threw her back, and her legs connected with the base of her glass coffee table. She flew back, smashing into it and sending thousands of glass fragments scattering like intricate jigsaw pieces all over the floor.

Her back throbbed from the force of her fall, and her fingers blindly grappled over the jagged edges of glass.

"I'm warning you, stay away from me!" she hissed fiercely.

Dr. Wilson was unamused. "Sara, my dear, you're making this far more difficult than it has to be".

He moved forward with the kind of swiftness a panther would envy, and had her pinned with her arm twisted painfully behind her back before she could move. Sara continued to struggle until he pulled back violently on her arm. "Stop!"

The pain halted all further movement. She felt a shard of glass under her free hand, and she gripped it subtly; his body weight now had her completely pinned and all she could do was wait for a moment to strike. Testing the doctor's hold, she twisted slightly, bringing her more pain.

"It's amazing isn't it Sara? The pain humans are willing to tolerate to avoid more pain. For you though, I bet you're willing to endure pain long enough to inflict it upon the person causing it."

His weight shifted and she seized her opportunity.

She swung around, crying out at the sudden agony as it wrenched her arm, and stabbed him in the leg. Dr. Wilson hissed in pain and fury, yanking her shoulder back with unrestrained anger. The pain was so spontaneous and overwhelming; Sara saw black dots dancing in front of her eyes.

Then he removed the needle, and jabbed it in her upper arm. And though she struggled to fight against it, she felt herself rapidly sliding into the soft, hazy realm of unconsciousness.

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Grissom allowed himself the simple, fleeting pleasure of studying Sara as she perched silently on the edge of his breakfast bar, allowing himself to drink in her subtle beauty, and admit that the only time he felt entirely reassured was when she was with him, because he knew that she was safe.

He knew now, that it was an anxiety that was never going to fade. He was as constantly aware of her presence as he had once been to avoid it, and he realised that there was a simultaneous burden and joy that came with loving someone like he loved her.

It was strangely liberating to be able to admit the truth to himself like that. Admitting it to Sara was… a daunting thought. While their shared trauma had allowed them to develop some sort of intrinsic bond such as they had never had before, it had also served to seriously sever their ability to communicate with one another, if that was something they had ever had to begin with.

They were together, but they were separated. Isolated in their own private worlds of pain; dealing with their experiences in their own individual ways. Unable to share what they were truly feeling or acknowledge the depth of their relationship, because Dr. Wilson had managed to twist it into their worst nightmare.

The bruises marring her pretty features had almost faded into non-existence, and for a moment he managed to convince himself this was the old, relentlessly flirty and self-confident Sara, in his house watching him cook dinner because he had finally given in to his feelings for her and had asked her on a date. He had never wanted such an extreme event to be the catalyst for their relationship.

He could finally admit he cared for her-- and everything had changed. He found himself longing for the days when getting around Ecklie and worrying about their boss/subordinate relationship were their only barriers.

I didn't know how lucky I was.

He cleared his throat when he realised how caught up in his thoughts he had become and, gestured down at the oven as he closed the tray. "This might take a while. Do you want to… start the movie?"

Sara studied him, cocoa-coloured eyes intense and unreadable. As she always was these days, she was just within his reach, yet limitlessly unattainable. He knew he had never been upfront with her about his own feelings, and this almost felt like karmic retribution. He wondered if she had often felt this same frustration.

At last, she nodded, rising from her stool. "Sure".

They settled on the sofa, she on the edge, him partially placing himself in the middle. Crowding her was the last thing he wanted to do. They had chosen an old film, Hitchcock's Spellbound, one that appealed to their higher intellects but that allowed them to relax as well. He was concerned at first that the plot would be too much for her, but Sara insisted that any movie with Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman was all right with her.

Grissom found himself, oddly, uninterested in the plot. Sara's mere presence beside him was distraction enough, and he sighed, keeping one eye fixed on the clock, and the other half-heartedly on the television screen as he waited for their dinner.

Sara woke with a sluggish, unusual amount of difficulty, feeling a throbbing in her skull as she slowly worked her eyes open. Her surroundings were impossibly dark, and possessed a distinct, overpowering stench that immediately reminded her of death.

She swallowed, lifting her head when she realised the pain had something to do with the stone wall behind her. Her body was positioned awkwardly, with her head lolling between her shoulder and the wall, and as she shifted, something rattled against her arm.

She glanced down, realising her wrist was encased in a heavy metal cuff, the type attached to a long, medieval chain.

Her mouth went dry as she contemplated her predicament, and she felt a burst of true, unadulterated fear. She could barely make out her pale, silvery flesh in the darkness, and yet she knew with a sudden, startling alacrity where she was.

The prison cells in the warehouse. The crime scene.

The torture chamber.

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A sliver of light shone into the cell as the towering figure of Lee Wilson strode in, with practised cunning and patience, looming over her. She stared back up at him, finding it bitterly ironic that all of her self-defence training had ultimately amounted to squat.

The cell door remained open behind him, and he stepped within mere inches of her, possessing an obnoxious confidence that the chains would restrain her adequately. She shifted in place, finding it difficult to move as strong pain suddenly laced through her shoulder, and thought that that was probably a fair deduction.

"Hello, Sara", he said calmly. "I hope you're well rested".

She glared at him in disbelief, mildly assured by the mantra of logic she kept going through her head. It was her only weapon against him, and she chose to utilise it fiercely. "You're insane", she spat with misplaced confidence. "You really think someone won't find me? We're at the crime scene. They're going to notice I'm missing from work".

Dr. Wilson smiled with infinite patience and charm. "They would", he agreed solicitously. "Except as of ten minutes ago, Sara is on medical leave for two days due to the recommendations of her doctor. Her supervisor understands completely, and wishes her a speedy recovery".

Sara blinked, infused with newfound uncertainty. Grissom bought that? She was hot on a case, and suddenly she took some sick days?

Even as she considered it, a new, unwelcome thought invaded her misgivings. Last year, it might have seemed unfeasible. Unfortunately, this year, she was making a conscious, noticeable effort not to spend all of her waking hours at the lab.

She stared at the doctor in growing horror, reassuring herself with one consistent thought. Grissom would know her better than that. He would. He had to.

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Grissom realised he had dozed lightly when Sara touched him softly on the arm. "Hey. Dinner's gonna burn in a minute".

He blinked, meeting her gaze briefly, allowing himself to momentarily become caught up in the deep, sensuous brown of her eyes. They held a sweet innocence nothing could ever tarnish for him, and he basked in their glow.

He realised after a while that he had still not reacted to her statement, and he rose quickly from the sofa, crossing to the kitchen alcove. Sara paused the movie, and it was a while before he realised her eyes were on him. He twisted around, placing the steaming oven tray down and meeting her gaze questioningly.

"What?"

She shrugged, eyes darting away now she herself had been caught staring, scanning over the room to hide her awkwardness. "This is kind of weird, isn't it? I mean… seeing each other in a non-work environment?"

He shrugged, concentrating with unnecessary intensity as he dished the vegetarian loaf onto two plates. "Well, it's not something we've ever really… done before".

She nodded, frowning slightly as she drew circles with her index finger on his sofa. "Right." She wavered as she considered something thoughtfully. "Can I ask you a question?" she decided, at last.

Grissom hesitated, but slowly nodded his head. "Of course."

"Do you… Are you doing this because you're worried about me… or because you need me to be here?"

Grissom frowned, lowering the forgotten meal onto the counter. "Sara, I…"

She rose to her feet, circling the sofa until she was standing on the other side of the counter. Her expression was strangely stern and she folded her arms in a defensive gesture. "Because if you're just worried about me… I don't need you to… I have Greg for that, and Nick, and the others. And they don't understand what happened like you do".

Grissom swallowed, feeling uncharacteristically exposed, and had difficulty formulating his sentence. Some things would never change. He was still as ineloquent around her as he had ever been. "Sara, I… I feel like I… I worry when you're not around. I worry about you constantly. But that's not the reason I asked you here."

She surveyed him cautiously, and after a while seemed content with his response.

They ate their dinner in companionable silence, and returned to the sofa and their half-finished film.

The earlier awkwardness between them had vanished somewhat. Grissom had his eyes focused on the screen when he felt warmth on his shoulder, and glanced down to realise Sara had leant her head against him.

He didn't tense or move away, and was amazed by the comfort he drew from their simple closeness. After a moment, he brushed his thumb delicately over her forehead, wiping away a wayward strand of hair, relishing the sensation of her soft, creamy skin. He realised she felt comforted enough herself to close her eyes and it imbued him with newfound hope. She trusted him.

It was hardly the most intimate position he had ever been in with a woman, and yet with Sara, it felt different. With Sara, it felt like home.

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