Chapter 35

Little Misunderstandings

The next mornings lecture was what Gil had decided to be the most successful of the three. This time, the students seemed much more attentive and focused. Unlike the first two lectures, they seemed interested in learning, and intent on asking all sorts of questions he had not expected.

The lecture had gone so incredibly well that Gil was almost sad to have it end so soon. He watched slightly crestfallen as the students piled out of the lecture hall. He tidied away his notes and looked around to see if he could find Sara. Sara was gone, he realised she must have gone to deal with her discussion group for the final evaluation.

The hall was empty, except from one girl who had come from the back of the benches, a young blonde with curly hair and bright blue eyes that glittered as she approached.

"Hey…" he said, straightening up a little.

"I…uhm…I attended all your lectures, I just wanted to say that what you said was really interesting," she admitted. She had a high sweet voice, and her accent was clear and sharp as if she were speaking plainly so he might understand.

"Oh?" Gil stopped, there was a table by the wall he had been standing by, putting his notes into his briefcase, "are you interested in forensic entomology?"

"Actually, I'm studying to be a doctor, but forensics has always kind of fascinated me…" she admitted, she smiled. "When I heard you'd be lecturing here, I just had to come. I've read books about murders in Las Vegas that you've solved with forensics. I'd have never known insects could be the key to estimating the time of death on a body until I read this book that had an interview with you in it. It's kind of cool. You're a celebrity in our midst."

Gil smiled, "actually…I'm just a man being paid to do what he loves. I don't really care for all the attention it can get me."

"You make forensics sound so incredibly captivating it makes me want to change my studies entirely," she spoke with a fierce fervor that left him very much reminded of Sara when she'd been a student attending one of his lectures.

Gil reached out to shake her hand, "what's your name?"

"Christine Ness," she shook his hand enthusiastically, a warm smile painted on her perfect pouting mouth.

"Christine, it's nice to meet someone with a genuine fascination with forensics," he smiled back at her.

Christine tossed her hair over her shoulder, "how long have you been doing this for?"

"Entomology, forensics, or lecturing?" he raised an eyebrow and gave a quizzical smile.

"Forensics," Christine responded.

"That's a long and drawn out story," Gil responded with a wink, "and I won't bore you with it…" he added, he glanced towards her, something small and black attached to the front of her blue shirt caught his attention, sitting just atop her left breast. He reached out and tentatively picked it up.

She watched his hand, almost confused for a moment, then seemed relieved when he moved it back to show her what he'd found.

"Attegenus unicolour…" he replied quickly, putting it into his open hand, "black carpet beetle…"

"Ugh, the flat me and my boyfriend share is full of these things…we can't seem to get rid of them," she uttered, "every time you move a piece of furniture they call come scuttling from under it…and these other…wormy things."

"The larvae…" Gil nodded, "is your place clean?"

"Excuse me?" Christine blinked. Her blue eyes were widened.

How blunt can you get? He wondered at himself. He tried to rephrase the question.

"Without sounding rude, I mean…are you and your boyfriend very neat people?"

"Yeah, actually," Christine nodded, she folded her arms casually, "we clean under the furniture at least two times a week. We vacuum, we dust, we clean every day, and we still can't seem to get rid of these things, they just keep coming back," she explained.

"Something in your home must be attracting them," Gil paused, "do you own any pets?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Uhm…yeah, a dog…why?"

"There's your answer. You leave a bowl on the floor for the dog – that's a massive buffet to these things. I knew someone who had the same situation. Immaculate house that he had a cleaning lady scour every single day and still these beetles kept showing up – eventually discovered it was the cat food that had been left in the cats dish," he pushed the carpet beetle on his hand slightly with the tip of his finger so that it began to scuttle across his open hand.

"Ohhh…" Christine chewed her lip, "so…what do I do about it?"

"Cover up the food in the dog bowl whenever the dog isn't eating, that might help reduce the number it attracts. In the meantime, you might want to look behind baseboards, or cracks in the floor or moldings, they must be getting in somehow," he looked down at his hand, watching the beetle desperately move. "These things will eat just about everything…fabrics, leather, carpets, any kind of crumbs – they get into your cereal boxes, and bags of flour."

"Ugh. Suddenly I wish I hadn't have cornflakes for breakfast," Christine smiled wryly. She glanced at her watch, "Well…anyway…I really need to go…I have a class in two minutes," she made a face, "but thanks for the lecture, and…thanks for talking, and for the advice about the bugs," she smirked. "It's been interesting meeting you Mr Grissom."

"It was my pleasure," Gil nodded. He watched her go then glanced back to his hand to see that the beetle had escaped "Oh great…I might have just started an infestation in the lecture hall…"

That evening, he'd collected Sara from her hotel suite and escorted her to the formal dinner – which incidentally was taking place in the same hotel they were staying in. Sara looked stunning in a simple long black dress with a halter neck. She wore no jewellery, and noticing this made Gil wish he'd thought to perhaps buy her something to wear around her neck.

It seemed to be less of a dinner and more of a convention, and Gil had little interest in the events going on around him. What was concerning him at the moment was that for some reason, Sara was acting terribly cold towards him.

It had seemed to start the moment he'd come to get her at her door, she'd pretended to be congenial, but he'd been able to tell something was bothering her, she had a distracted expression on her face.

Then during drinks at the table with the same professors who'd joined them for dinner three nights running, Sara had barely said a word to him at all, even when he'd spoken to her.

I don't get it, is this about last night? She seemed fine with it this morning at breakfast, he thought. What have I done?

She sat across the table from him, sipping her second glass of wine of the evening, turned towards the front of the room where some stuffy old female professor was giving a speech on the prestige of Edinburgh University. Gil wasn't listening to a word, he was staring at Sara all the while.

Sara excused herself from the table to get herself a drink shortly after the speeches ended and the meal began. Gil watched her go, and watched her stand at the drinks table downing an entire glass of wine without even losing a drop.

Oh god, please don't let her get drunk, he thought.

He got up to join her but someone he'd never met before approached him to speak with him, and helplessly, he felt he could not escape. He kept glancing over the shoulder of the professor, Sara was standing by the wall, she'd gone through four glasses of wine now, Gil counted. She was speaking with Professor Tavish for several moments, then excused herself. Sara disappeared from view entirely.

Gil got cornered by three more professors, them all extremely fascinated about his line of work, and out of respect, he simply tried to answer all their questions without showing much concern at all about anything else.

When he finally did manage to get away from everyone, he could not find Sara at all. Without excusing himself to anyone, he left the formal dining hall, and he headed up towards Sara's suite, hoping to god this was where she'd be.

She'd left the door wide open, and Gil was mortified to think she could have done this so carelessly – any man could have walked in and taken advantage. He stepped in quietly, shut the door behind her, and found her by a small mini bar.

"What are you doing?" he asked as he watched her down a miniature bottle of Peach Schnapps.

"Drinking," Sara answered wearily, "do you want something?"

"Yeah…an explanation," Gil stepped over. She was sitting on the floor, two empty bottles from other miniatures in her lap. "I don't get this drinking thing, Sara…" he admitted.

"You wouldn't," Sara uttered, she stood up, the glass bottles landing softly on the floor, one on top of the other with a little clink. She kicked her heels off and padded barefoot over to the window, she looked outside.

"Did I do something wrong?" I asked.

"Tell me something, Grissom," Sara said, and Gil realised she must have been angry right then if she was using his last name as opposed to his first, "why is it that you find flirting with a girl half my age when you can't even emote to me?"

Gil stood frozen, completely confused, "I don't understand…"

"The blonde, in the lecture hall. You were flirting, and don't tell me you weren't."

"I…uh…" he gaped at her, "I what?"

"You were flirting…jesus, you had that goofy smile you had on your face the entire time – the same smile you always got whenever Terri Miller came to CSI."

"You saw that?" Gil blinked.

"I came in to grab my notes which I'd dropped – I saw," Sara said.

"I wasn't flirting." Gil protested.

"Oh? Then what other reason did you have for touching her breast, mild curiosity?" she gestured towards him angrily, she had another miniature bottle in her hand, this time it was whiskey.

"Sara, are you insane? I picked a carpet beetle off of her shirt," Gil frowned, he snatched the bottle from her hand, "and you have had way too much to drink as it is."

"Oh sure, carpet beetle, right, I'll believe that," she rolled her eyes, she stumbled just a little, and then she sank onto the couch.

Gil stood, confounded how to deal with this. He could understand how it might have looked like flirting, it might have even looked suspicious, certainly, but she was drunk, and it seemed that the drunker she'd let herself get, the less irrational she had become. What might have looked normal that morning would suddenly look so completely dubious after a few too many drinks.

"Look this is all just a little misunderstanding…" Gil wasn't sure why he asked what he did next, "don't you trust me?"

"I don't know," Sara responded with a slight slur, "should I?"

Gil moved over to sit beside her, "Sara…I think there's more going on here than this thing between you and me…" he put his hand on her bare arm, her skin was cold, he could feel the bumps of gooseflesh under his fingers.

He wasn't sure when he'd realised this, but somewhere between his standing there watching her stumble to the couch, and his sitting down, it seemed to come into light that there had to be more to her drinking than what he was putting her through. Whatever was eating at her couldn't just be his fault.

What have you done to drive her to drink? Gil thought at himself. You made her wait 5 years before even kissing her, you won't make love with her, you won't speak about the future. Could this really depress her so much it makes her want to drink herself into such a stupor?

Sara pulled her arm out from under his hand, she turned away, "leave it."

"No…I can't, Sara. Every time I see you with a drink in your hand I feel cold inside, it pains me…it terrifies me, to be honest…" he swallowed nervously.

Sara got up, "get out."

"You have a problem, Sara…"

"I don't want to talk about this right now. Get out!" she gestured to the door, she stumbled a little, and barely caught herself steady by putting her hand on the nearby table.

Gil stood slowly, "Is that really what you want?" he asked.

Sara's eyes were glistening, Gil saw a pain behind her eyes he'd never seen before, and seeing it made his heart feel as if it were being wrenched right out of his chest.

Sara's words were full of emotion as she drunkenly admitted what she did next, "All I want is to be loved."

Yeah, some people will scream it's OOC, I guess. I dunno, it felt write in putting this part in though. And I left it on a cliffhanger, mwahahahahaha. Who KNOWS what's gonna happen next! LOL.

I'll add in the names of the 3 line or more reviewers in Chapter 36.

Thanks to everyone who still keeps reviewing. They're the highlight of my day.

SS