Chapter 77

You're Mad

The first thing Gil felt when he woke up was the nausea. It seemed to roll in waves up his stomach and continuing to his throat. He wasn't familiar with his surroundings at first, disorientated for several moments not remembering where he'd been or what he'd done. But he was in Sara's bedroom, lying over the covers in his clothes. His shoes were off and his shirt collar had been loosened.

Nausea came in more waves, and this time he knew he had to act fast before he threw up all over the bed. He just barely made it to the bathroom, barely even noticing Sara sleeping soundly on the couch in the living room, the was television on, VH1 music was blaring throughout the living room.

Vague details of the night swayed in and out of his head while evil nausea tugged at his insides as he leaned over the toilet in order to rid himself of any traces of the toxic poison that was alcohol.

Gil hadn't suffered a hangover in quite some time, which he supposed contributed to how bad this one was. If he'd suffered one quite recently, he'd have remembered how lousy the feeling was.

After nausea had done it's wicked deed on him, he sat on the floor, back against the cool tile wall beside the bathtub, he felt weak and disgraceful.

Nearly fifty years old and still can't hold your liquor, he thought miserably to himself. He sat there for some moments trying to pull himself together enough to get up before finally finding the strength to do so. He moved to the sink, used a finger to brush his teeth as best he could and try and remove the taste and smell of vomit, and then he splashed cold water on his face. When his hands touched the water, he felt the sting of cuts he hadn't realised were there, there was a tiny splinter of glass embedded in his skin, he was amazed it could have survived there all night without him realizing it. He pulled it out and washed it down the drain and tried to clean the cut as best he could.

He glanced in the mirror once before turning to step into the living room, giving himself an awkward glance and realizing how much at that moment he really did look his age – perhaps even older.

When he wandered into the living room, Sara was still soundly sleeping. Gil picked up the TV remote and lowered the volume of Elton John's 'I'm Still Standing'. He knelt by the couch and watched Sara.

She was peaceful, bathed in the light of the morning, all curled up in the fetal position, her lips slightly parted.

Gil gave a sigh and leaned over to kiss her head affectionately.

Sara stirred, and rolled over onto her back, bringing her knees up, "Gil?" she asked, eyes closed tightly as a beam of sunlight cut across her face.

"Go back to sleep," Gil murmured, "I'm gonna head off…"

Sara sat slowly, and stretched, "no…don't go yet…" she replied, there was a firmness in her voice that was usually only used at work when speaking with suspects. Gil felt chills run up his spine.

She was mad at him again.

Sara spent a few moments trying to wake up, she sat with her head in her hands, as if trying to compose her thoughts.

Gil decided he would be the one to break this awkward silence, "I'm sorry…" he said.

"What were you thinking last night?" Sara asked, she moved her hair away from her face and sighed, her eyes were extremely tired, Gil realised she'd probably only gone to sleep a few hours ago – being on the nightshift, her sleeping pattern was usually confined to the light of day.

"I don't know," Gil replied wearily, "I wasn't."

"Do you even remember what you were like last night?" Sara's eyes fell on him, he was still kneeling on the floor between the couch and the coffee table.

"Vaguely."

"You couldn't stand straight…you kept falling…"

"I guess that's how I got this cut on my hand," he replied with a sigh.

Sara sighed, "I have some bandaids…" she got up and slowly moved to the kitchen.

"You're mad."

"I'm pissed off."

"Why?"

"You have the nerve to even ask that?" Sara opened a cupboard.

"It's not about nerve."

"You know why, Grissom."

"Ah, we're back to Grissom. You must be mad," he smirked despite himself. "Okay, so…this is about…what, the fact that I didn't come straight here to be with you, I went out drinking with Dayshift?"

"No. This is about you coming here drunk, and trying to press for sex. You scared me last night…I didn't trust you last night."

These words hurt.

"Worst of all…you came here drunk after having bitched at me about a drinking problem…" Sara remarked bitterly.

"I said I was sorry."

"Sorry just doesn't quite cut it," Sara threw him a look.

Gil stood up and walked over, "I can't believe you're mad at me for getting drunk – once."

"It's not just that. It's a culmination of everything that's happened in the last few months, Gil. I thought I wanted you to change, but the truth is that you've been changing so much lately that you're not even like yourself."

"What are you talking about?"

"You've lost the same respect you had for your job, you don't spend time thinking much anymore, you tend to act more without thinking than you used to…hell, you proposed to me on the plane…"

"Must we bring that up again?" Gil sighed.

"The point is that these things just aren't what made you you…I'm starting to feel like I'm dating a completely different person from who I fell in love with."

"Love chances people, Sara," Gil retorted, "you changed me. You wanted me to change, you wanted me to make a change, take a chance on you and I did…"

Sara looked away from him.

"Sara…why have you waited all this time to say this to me?"

"It didn't bother me until you showed up at my door drunk last night," Sara answered. "I'm trying to get over a drinking problem here, and your coming here wasted was the last thing I needed to see. The old Gil Grissom wouldn't have ddone something so…insensitive."

"So now I'm insensitive?" Gil asked.

"Among other things," Sara remarked.

Gil tried to purse the anger up inside himself but it refused to stay below the surface, "you know…you…just…you confuse me! You want me one way, then another. You want me to make changes, so I do, and then you decide suddenly you don't like the changes I've made. You wanted commitment, you wanted a future, so I ask you to marry me and you blow me off. I've spent most of this relationship trying to cater to what you want of me, struggling to get to grips with half of it and forcing myself to make major changes which have changed my whole life, and now you're telling me that it's not what you want…it's driving me insane, Sara."

"Yeah, well now you know how it feels to be pulled in and then pushed out," she shot. "I've been putting up with it from you for years before this relationship ever got off the ground. One minute you're flirting, the next minute you're telling me to go out and have a life, then when I date someone you become cold towards me…" she looked at him.

"This isn't the same as that, Sara…"

"How isn't it the same!" she demanded loudly.

"Because you didn't have to make huge changes here, Sara, I did!" he yelled.

Sara frowned, "I left my whole life behind in San Francisco to come running when you needed me at a moments notice. I left a boyfriend, a bought apartment, and six friends to come here," she gestured wildly, "so don't you dare tell me I haven't made changes for you."

Gil fell silent, "You were dating someone back then…when I asked you to come…?"

"Yes, I was," Sara eyes dropped to the countertop. She had the box of bandaids in her hand, but made no attempt to hand them over to him yet. "And I dropped him. Because I was deluding myself into believing that the minute I got here you'd be taking me in your arms and sweeping me off my feet," she gave an ironic laugh.

Gil dropped his gaze to the floor, not sure what to say to this.

"This relationship…has been one disaster after another," Sara sighed.

"We always knew it would be, Sara. We knew that there wouldn't be an exact happy ending once we got together."

"I know that, and yet, I still had myself fooled into thinking that once I was with you, it would be a happy ending."

Gil looked at her, "so…what do you want to do about this, Sara?" he asked, feeling completely emotionally drained, and physically sick still from the after effects of the alcohol. "Do you want to call this a day?"

"Do you?"

"I don't think I could go back to life without you, Sara," Gil admitted truthfully and he watched her, waiting for some kind of reaction. "What about you?"

Sara put her hands over her face, "jesus, I don't know, I just…" she trailed off but seemed incapable of finishing the thought.

"Catherine said to me a few weeks ago that when you're emotional, blowing up at someone, or something helps," Gil said, "we've blown up at each other, I don't have it in me to fight anymore, do you?"

"No. I guess not," Sara sighed.

"It's easier to forgive each other than hold grudges," Gil suggested.

"I know."

"You never answered me, Sara. Do you want to call it a day?" he asked sadly.

Sara sighed, without another word she stepped over, she took his hand and placed a bandaid over the series of small cuts on his palm.

He watched her, mesmerized for some moments, then leaned over to kiss her forehead, and she didn't recoil.

"I'm sorry…I don't know why I got so mad…" Sara finally admitted.

"It's okay. We can pin it down to PMS if you like," he promised. He kissed her forehead again, "are we okay now?"

"Yeah. We're okay."

"What about what we talked about?" he asked, "my changing…your not knowing what you want…"

"We'll figure it out," Sara gave a weak smile.

He embraced her, breathed in the scent of her hair, and sighed in relief that the fight was over, "Okay."

Another blah chapter, although some of you seem to like the chapters where they have a bit of an argue, so someone out there might have enjoyed this.

Thanks to everyone for their reviews :)