Chapter 56

Life is Great

"Grissom, you've been grinning like an idiot all day."

Gil had been lost in his thoughts when he heard Catherine speak. He hadn't been aware he'd been grinning at all, although it certainly didn't surprise him. After a morning like he'd had, it didn't surprise him at all.

He couldn't help it. As ridiculous as it made him feel, there was just no way he could suppress this persistent smile.

"I'm sorry," he admitted, and carried on with what he'd been doing.

Gil and Catherine were searching for evidence in the back of a white ford transit van in the garage. He'd escaped the usual paperwork his job entailed for a time to help Catherine out. Sara had her day off, and Warrick was appearing in court. The graveyard shift almost seemed to ground to a complete halt being so completely understaffed once again.

There was the option of calling Sara in, of course, but Gil felt that might do more harm than good at the moment – especially after that morning. He doubted he would get any work done if she were in the building. Distraction was a dangerous thing.

"No, don't apologise," Catherine climbed into the back of the van with him, she switched on the UV light in her hand, and bent down to examine the carpeting, "it's different, seeing you without that usual grim expression on that face of yours," she confessed, "up until a few months ago, I thought perhaps you didn't have any smiling muscles at all."

Gil smirked at her teasing, "perhaps all I needed was a reason to smile?" he queried, he gave her a wink, and knelt down, gesturing to a stain on the carpeting that had been hiding under normal circumstances deep within the fibers of the carpet. "Swab this."

Catherine took a swab out to obtain a sample for analysis, "so…things are going well?" she asked. She swabbed the carpet and enclosed the sample in its cap, she placed it aside.

"Better than I could have ever hoped – or dreamed," he responded quietly, surprising himself that he could still concentrate on work even when Catherine's bringing up the situation led him to think even more about Sara that morning.

Catherine paused for thought, "you know, it amazes me," she stated, she took a good look at Gil, "you're changing. You're actually changing. You. A creature of habit. Suddenly you're not hiding away like some hermit, only coming out to work."

Gil flushed, slightly pleased with this and yet, slightly uneasy about the thought of that. He was changing, he had already changed. His whole world had changed, his routine, his personality, even his passion for his job…all because of Sara.

"Is it a bad thing?" he asked worriedly, stopping to look at her, his blue eyes serious.

Catherine gave a merry laugh, "are you kidding, it's great. It's like you've been Pinocchio all this time – all wooden-like – and now you've made the transition to a real live boy."

Gil gave a soft laugh at this, "far from a boy," he commented, and winked at Catherine, he noted a tiny blood splatter on the wall of the van, he picked up the camera to take a picture before deciding to swab it.

"Ah, so that grin is far from your general happiness, then," Catherine grinned, "someone got laaaaaaaid."

"Sssh," Gil nudged her, "someone might hear."

Catherine hushed, and went back to concentrating on work for several moments before speaking again, "so it was good?"

"Was what good?" he asked, giving her his attention for a second in between trying to obtain other samples from the back of the van.

"Getting laid."

"I can't get into that with you," Gil responded, but grinned anyway nonetheless. "Why are you so interested anyway? I thought women only discussed sex with other women?" he asked.

"You weren't so bent on that rule when you were asking about sex the other day," Catherine mused.

"That was different, that was advice, not a sex talk."

"Sex was involved," Catherine commented, "Grissom, I'm the closest thing you have to a best friend here, don't you trust me?"

"Of course I trust you. But you're also a woman."

"So I'm marred by my sex," Catherine responded, almost bitterly.

"Nope. I just don't feel comfortable repeating the details of my sex life with a woman…" he trailed off, but then smirked, "unless it's the one I happen to have pinned against the kitchen counter," he kept his voice quiet.

Catherine's mouth fell open, "kitchen counter? You animal, you. I never knew you had it in you!" she laughed.

"Neither did I, Cath. Neither did I."

Gil was glad when the shift was over. It had been the kind of day that had seemed to last an eternity, and all day he only had one thing in mind. Seeing Sara.

He hummed along to the radio during the drive to Sara's apartment building, his heart light, a smile still plastered on his face that he could see every time he glanced into the wing mirror.

I can't believe it, he thought as he pulled into the parking lot behind Sara's building. Life is good. No. Life is great. Life is spectacular. He had to laugh at himself thinking this.

He traveled the stairs quickly to get to Sara's apartment, surprised to find the door slightly ajar. There was loud music playing inside the apartment, Gil found himself absurdly wondering how the neighbours had not though to complain.

His mind began to work into overdrive, his heart began to thud. Why was her door open, why was the music so loud? Had she been robbed? Had someone broke into her apartment and put the music up so no one would hear a commotion?

"Sara?" he called out, he pulled his sleeve over his hand to push the door open as so not to leave fingerprints or disturb any lingering ones. The door swung open quietly, and he stepped in slowly, looking around. "Sara?" he asked again.

The apartment was a complete shambles, a chair overturned, the pictures that usually stood on the shelf above the desk had fallen to the floor. The coffee table had been swept free of the books she usually kept piled there, which were now thrown to the floor in a careless fashion.

Orange juice had been spilled on the counter, all the cupboards hung open as if someone had been looking for something frantically and had forgotten to close them. A pile of CDs were scattered all over the floor.

"SARA!" he cried out, he rushed towards the bedroom, the bed blankets were hanging to the floor, a pile of clothes and shoes splayed across the floor in careless fashion. It certainly looked like there had been a crime.

Gil turned and left the bedroom and strode across the living room to the other side to find the bathroom, he threw the door open and rushed in. Sara was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, her head in her hands, a bottle of vodka was at her feet on its side. It had fallen, letting the contents spill out onto the tiled floor. He could smell it now.

"Jesus…" he sighed in relief, for one terrible moment he'd thought that something might have happened to her, that some burglars might have broken in and attacked her.

Sara was wearing nothing save a white oversized t-shirt. Her legs and feet were bare, her fingers were buried in her hair.

"Sara?" he asked, he glanced down to the bottle and felt a cold chill sweep across his soul. She'd been drinking again. Somehow, in the relief of the moment that she hadn't been assaulted, he'd overlooked it. Now, it was so blatantly staring him in the face.

Sara took her hands away from her face and looked up at him. She had a bruise below her right eye which was slightly swelling. Her eyes were glassy, as if she were close to crying. She spoke with a bitter tongue, "get out."

Gil was so taken aback he could do nothing but stand there in silence. Sara got up quickly and passed by him in a drunken stumble, she left the bathroom before he had a chance to ask her what was going on.

"Sara…" he asked in confusion, he chased her, "what happened here?"

Sara was trying to pick up the chair, so completely off balance, she didn't succeed, instead she stumbled and tripped, falling to the floor with a soft thud. "Just get out."

They both heard the neighbour below bang on the ceiling to indicate for them to be quiet. Gil wasn't surprised. The music was probably the problem.

Gil moved over to the hifi and shut the music off, then he knelt by Sara, "I'm not leaving."

Sara frowned, "stop looking at me like that. Like you're analyzing me."

"I'm not analyzing anything. All I'm doing is wondering what's going on. I left you this afternoon and you were in a good mood, I come back to find you drunk, bruised and your apartment in a shambles…" he gestured around them.

"I'm not drunk," Sara pulled herself up and steadied herself on the wall.

"Right," Gil remarked sarcastically, he stood, remaining opposite her, he tried to look her in the eyes but she looked away.

Moments of silence past, neither said anything, Sara just stood there, her eyes still with tears threatening to spill.

"Is this about me?" he asked concernedly. She gave a shake of her head.

Gil picked the chair up for her and placed it down right on the floor, he wasn't sure how to deal with this. Black coffee and cleaning the apartment up as best as he could seemed to be the only thing he could be capable of. But it didn't work as a permanent solution. It wouldn't make everything all better again.

Looking at her in this condition, seeing her so drunk and distressed, it did something to him that he couldn't explain. It was almost as if he could feel her heartache over something. Only he had no clue what it was, and this made it harder to deal with. It made him want to cry out of hopelessness, but he wasn't about to let her see him shed a single tear.

He decided to try again, he used his supervisory tone with her. Direct and firm. It seemed to be the best way in dealing with awkward situations, "Sara…this…has been going on too long for me to just ignore…" he took her by the arm and led her to the chair to sit down. He knelt in front of her, "tell me what's going on…" he pleaded softly.

"No…nothing is going on, I'm just…I don't know, just…just leave it," she turned away from him as if even looking at him repulsed her. He felt hurt by this, and he moved back slowly.

"You said this isn't me…but you can't even look at me right now…" he felt a lump grow in his throat.

"Believe me, it's not you," she assured, "I just…I don't want you seeing me like this…"

He reached out and touched her bruised cheek, "what happened to your face?"

"I fell over the fucking chair, okay?" she uttered crudely.

Gil now saw that this was a possibility. She could be pretty unsteady after a few drinks. He'd seen her fall before, and she didn't do it gracefully.

"Your face is a little swollen, we should get something cold on that to reduce the swelling, huh?" he stood slowly. "Then…once we've fixed that…we'll talk."

"I don't want to talk, Grissom," she remarked, and her use of his last name made him realise just how upset she was about whatever was bothering her. "I just want to forget, okay?" she stood up and left the living room, without another word.

The bedroom door shut sharply and loudly behind her. A sure invitation that Gil was not invited to come after her.

Giving in with her for the moment, deciding to give her some time, he began to pick up the mess in the living room and put it away as best he could, trying to remember where things went. He'd deal with her when she'd sobered up.

Okay, maybe the title was a little bit of a misleading title, lol, hehe. Ah, anyway...

Thanks to the following reviewers!

Mystical Panther, Samantha, jtbwriter, lunar47, marcelle, sarahmakinson, Gossamerwings7, NimrodDuckie, Aidrianna, luckyladyinlace, Wishing on the Moon, woody27, MissAmanda, LGraziano, CookieK2, moia, Marbs, Phoenix38133, princesspink, wandaa, Niebezpiczny Ksiezyc, Kimber McLeod, Erlina Silverstra, and kristy87

Aaaaaah - yeah, I know this chapter was late, I had a few problems relating to my insomnia and needing a break from the computer and stuff.

SS