Chapter 58

Empty Promise

When Gil left Sara that morning after making love, she'd already been asleep. They'd dropped off to sleep on the couch together, but Gil had woke up just before noon, and had moved her to the bedroom before leaving himself to go home, take a shower and get some much needed sleep on his own.

He did not get much sleep however, his mind was still a whirling mess of chaos and confusion over what had happened that morning. He still couldn't understand what had upset Sara, and this bothered him. He didn't like not knowing things, especially if it was important. Perhaps it was just the scientist in him that had to know the answers, but he couldn't help himself.

It was while he was lying in bed that the familiar throbbing of a migraine began to manifest, and he tried his best to force it out of his system as he rolled over and pulled the pillow over his head to drown out any outside noise, and any light that seeped through his eyelids.

Sleep was useless, and after trying for several hours to get any, he surrendered. His body felt tense, and he couldn't understand it. After what had happened this morning, tense should have been the last thing he was feeling.

With a sigh, he got up, and took two of the prescription painkillers for his migraine, put on a pair of sunglasses, and sipped on the strongest black coffee he could find in his house. He loaded himself on coffee until he felt sickened, and by the time it finally began to kick in and do its evil magic on his system, it was time to leave for work.

Gil arrived at work ten minutes early, heading straight to the break room for another cup of coffee – determined he would not let those effects falter even for a second. If the only way he'd be able to get through his day would be by overloading his system with caffeine, then so be it.

The team – save Sara – were all seated drinking coffee, they all watched him, studying him. He felt strangely annoyed with this more than usual.

"Grissom, you look like crap," was Catherine's first comment.

"Thanks, I don't think I could get through another day without your compliments," Gil said sarcastically, his tone biting, he then winced at himself, "sorry, ignore me," he then responded.

"Didn't get any sleep?" Catherine asked.

Gil shrugged, "happens to us all, doesn't it?" he poured himself some coffee.

Greg smirked knowingly, as if he thought perhaps Gil's lack of sleep might have been anything to do with Sara. Gil only wished he had the nerve to tell the boy it wasn't what he thought, but he wasn't in the mood to make excuses for himself right now.

"Hey, look, a lovebug bite," Greg pointed out to Gil's neck.

Gil put his hand to his neck, "excuse me?"

"I believe he's referring to the hickey on the left side of your neck, Mr Grissom," Catherine sipped her coffee, a rather smug look in her wide blue eyes.

Gil swore under his breath, "Cath, you have a mirror?"

"Sure," Catherine put her coffee down, picked her bag up from the floor and searched through it to find her compact, "here."

Gil flipped the mirror open and stared at his neck in it. They were right. Three bruises had manifested themselves on his flesh, starting just above his collar and disappearing beneath it. He pulled his collar away slightly to examine them.

He felt humiliation creep up his neck in a furious blush. He hadn't even noticed Sara doing this that morning – but then he supposed it was easy to become distracted in what she'd been doing.

"Just what I need," he muttered, "tell tale signs for people to make rumours about," he tried to fix his shirt collar so it was mostly concealed.

"I can cover it with make up for you?" Catherine suggested.

"Lets not even go there," Gil handed her the compact back.

The door to the break room opened and Sara strode in casually.

"Hey, it's Vampirella," Greg said cheerfully, and the others laugh – save Gil, who just tried to hide his face by picking up the nearest newspaper and pretended to be more than engrossed in the front page article.

"Hmm?" Sara asked in confusion, she moved over to where Gil was standing to get a cup of coffee.

"You left your vampiric marks on bugman," Warrick gestured towards Gil, he glanced towards Sara, then dropped his arm, "girl, what is that on your face?"

Sara touched her face absently, "oh…I, uh…I actually don't remember…" she rubbed her head, and for moments even Gil could see she was having trouble trying to piece together what had happened that morning before he'd arrived at her apartment.

"Looks like you went a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson," Warrick over exaggerated. It didn't look as bad as he was making out.

Gil examined Sara's face from the short distance between them, the welt was darker now than it had been this morning, but most of the swelling had gone down. Luckily, she'd been spared her eye swelling up to follow it.

Sara blinked, "oh yeah…I fell over a chair in my living room…I tripped, I was…uh…dancing…" she admitted rather sheepishly.

They all looked as if they didn't believe this. Eyes turned towards Gil suspiciously, and he felt the horror of realizing what they were thinking of him at that very instant.

They don't think I did that, do they? He wondered.

He could see Greg's eyes shift from Sara's face to examine the bruise, then to turn on him and look at the love-bite still revealed slightly by his collar.

No one said anything. The room seemed to drop several degrees cooler than it had before, the warmth and laughter dissipating like dust in the air.

Gil didn't want to be the first to say what he thought they were all thinking of him right that instant, although there was no question in his mind that they were thinking he'd hit Sara. They could see his love-bite now as a possible defensive wound. He shuddered. "Here…" he said to Sara taking her cup from her and pouring her coffee, he made a point of letting his fingers brush hers as he handed her the cup back.

Sara said nothing, she looked thoroughly horrified herself as to what they all must have been thinking.

"Dancing, huh?" Gil asked of her.

"I'm not a good dancer," she shrugged, she sipped her coffee, looking down so that her hair hid her face.

"Well, uhm…I'm gonna go check my locker, see if any new deposits from my secret admirer have arrived," Catherine got up slowly, feeling slightly uncomfortable.

Greg got up too, "yeah, I'm gonna go start early, I have some unfinished work from yesterday."

Warrick and Nick made no excuse, they simply just got up and followed Greg and Catherine out of the room quickly.

"Jesus," Sara put her hand to her head, "my head is pounding…"

"Drink tends to do that to people," Gil retorted, "you know what they thought, don't you…they had that look on their faces…they thought I hit you…"

Sara seemed mortified by this, her eyes wide and then she looked down to the floor, unable to say anything to him at all.

Gil barely noticed this, still caught up in his own exasperation with what had happened moments ago, "I could see the little cogs working in their little overactive imaginations as they made their assumptions," Gil grunted, "I can't believe they looked at me like that…as if I would ever do something like that to anyone...don't they know me by now?" he asked in complete incredulity, his tone hostile.

"No one knows you, Gil," Sara reminded, her voice somewhat cold, "why didn't you say something to them? You knew what they were thinking…"

"Because I was shocked they would even think that of me…" Gil trailed off, and neither of them made any accusation, I couldn't just…jump on them without hearing it first…" He sighed, "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I didn't know what they were thinking until you just told me," Sara sipped her coffee, she seemed anxious.

"I'll have a word with them," Gil decided.

"You can't tell them about this morning…" Sara looked at him pleadingly.

"Why not?"

"Because you are blowing this thing you call 'a problem' way out of proportion, okay?" she asked.

Gil sighed, "I'm not blowing anything out of proportion, Sara. I came to your apartment, the door was wide open, music was blasting…the place was a mess…"

"Because I couldn't find the damn bottle opener for a bottle of wine," Sara folded her arms.

"So you started on the vodka, danced yourself stupid and fell over a chair."

"Actually I had drank vodka before looking for the bottle opener, but you're more or less right."

"Sara…" he said softly, "we're going to have to talk about this sooner or later."

Sara passed by him, shaking her head, "it's not a problem. It's nothing, and you're just freaking out because that's what you do…" she looked over her shoulder at him.

"You were drinking alone…drinking yourself into oblivion for all I know…" the familiar pains of the migraine began to persist gain and he pressed his fingers against his temples trying to focus some of the pain away.

"I thought we had the rule of not talking about our personal lives at work…rules about not bringing our personal lives to work with us," Sara shot.

"I know we had that rule, but lately I have to break rules. I figure if I'm going to break rules it might as well be my own," he sighed.

"Hey, this is stupid…it's not a problem, not anymore, okay?" she asked, "What's wrong with your head?" she looked at him worriedly, realizing he looked rather pained.

"Nothing," Gil responded miserably, "Sara…" he began and lost his train of thoughts completely by her asking what was wrong with him. Now he was completely unsure of what he'd been going to say to her.

"Can't we just forget about this and just remember how good things were this morning AFTER I left the bathroom?" she suggested.

Gil felt a smile play about his lips, although it was a feeble one at that.

"Come on, Gil, this morning was…amazing. Surely that has some importance?"

"Of course it does," Gil admitted quietly.

Sara smiled, "Good. Instead of worrying about stupid stuff like my having had a couple of drinks, try concentrating on…how amazing this morning was."

"If I did that I'd never get any work done," he confessed, but sighed, "Sara, I'm serious. I'm worried about you…please just tell me that you're going to stop drinking, and I'll let it alone. I'll stop harassing you about it if you can just…confirm what I need to hear right now"

"Is that what it takes, me to make a promise like that to set you at ease?"

Gil paused, then gave a nod, "it's enough to put my mind at rest."

"Fine, then I promise, I'll stop drinking," she touched his hand sneakily before leaving the break room to go to work.

Gil watched her leave, his heart heavy. Somehow, he felt her words were nothing more than an empty promise she wouldn't keep. She hadn't set him at ease, his mind was not put to rest.

Yes, yet another blah chapter (setting up exposition I guess, more is coming eventually, don't worry).

Thanks to the following reviewers :)

Phoenix38133, LGraziano, wandaa, saramakinson, Hope, csishewolf, saskia2, kristy87, Samantha, NimrodDuckie, Aidrianna, MYSTICAL PANTHER, E.K., andPhDelicious

I think that's everyone who reviewd from chapters 56 - 57 :)