"Well Mr. Grissom, we hope to be done here in two to three weeks. I don't know why this insulation wasn't put in up to code but there's been a lot changes lately. Fortunately, one of the other properties we manage has a one bedroom furnished unit available. We are willing to put you up there for the duration of the work done. You will most likely wish to relocate your ah, pets as they aren't allowed in that complex." The man looked askance at the atriums of bugs and seemed to forcibly focus back on the conversation. "We're very sorry for the inconvenience this causes you. Here's the address of the apartment and if you'll just sign this temporary lease I'll give you the keys now."
Grissom sighed in irritation and glanced over the lease to make sure he wasn't obligated to pay anything before signing it. Handing the paperwork over to the property manager he accepted the slip of paper with the address and the keys to the apartment. Logically Grissom knew it wasn't the man's fault that he had to be relocated for a month for construction to occur but messengers of bad tidings always wind up with the short end of the stick. It was only as he was left considering how best to bring his bugs to his office at work that he had a realization. He glanced down at the paper with trepidation. The address hadn't changed. He was going to be neighbors with Sara Sidle for the next month.
--
Sara woke up disoriented. She lay still for a moment, trying to ascertain the reasons for her discomfort. She stretched out her legs tentatively and slipped into the air – so she was on a couch and, she fingered the fabric over her, covered with a worn blanket. She stilled herself again and noticed that she was curled to the back of the couch, gripping her cell phone tightly. Oh right, the alarm. Sara reached her arm behind her to set the phone on one of the break room's tables but heard it fall to the ground instead. Aw crap. Well, this means two things. One, I probably just broke my phone. Two, I'm sleeping in Grissom's office. Thank goodness he's – She heard someone quietly enter the room and pick up the phone. – clearly not in the field anymore. She felt the blanket being pulled up to her shoulders. As the fabric rubbed her skin she found herself dreaming that it was his hands brushing up her arms and she sighed. The footsteps retreated. She should go see if Greg had come up with anything. He would have paged her but considering how she hadn't reacted to her alarm, who knew what she had missed. She rolled over and sat up. "Hey. Sorry, most of the other couches were occupied."
"Not a problem. I just got in." He peered at the lopsided piles of papers on his desk as he spoke.
She looked around for her jacket that she had been using as a pillow and saw it huddled on the ground next to the couch. She picked it up and paused at the doorway for a moment and said, "Hey, Griss?"
He glanced up over his glasses. "Mmmh?"
"Are there more bugs in here or am I just going crazy?"
"Yes there are, I've got construction underway at my house."
"Oh. Wow, that must be noisy hey?"
"Mmmh," he rumbled.
She headed for the DNA lab, yawning and looking forward to her bed for once.
--
There was something about working a double and moving on to your next shift that added a certain aura to the world. That aura was fatigue. Sara leaned against her door as she thumbed through her keys looking for the one that would let her enter her sanctuary. She realized belatedly that she was on her work key ring. She shifted the keys and felt the familiar grip of her house key. Bonus. Stepping inside she shut the door, flipping the deadbolt automatically. She tossed her keys and cell phone onto the breakfast bar and stared at her kitchen with a small amount of apprehension. She vaguely recalled a half-eaten microwave veggie potpie who knows how long ago, so she should definitely eat. She opened her fridge. Clearly she needed to go shopping. She glanced at her living room. Clothes were strewn across the furniture and shoes lay were they had been kicked off. She also apparently had to do laundry.
Turning back to the open fridge she spied a jar of applesauce. It would have to do. She sat down on the couch and removed her shoes before putting her feet up on the coffee table. Cracking open the jar she noticed her socks didn't match – one was striped and the other was a solid blue. Chalk another one up to exhaustion. She turned the TV on to a music station and leaned back to enjoy her applesauce. She'd managed to eat a couple spoonfuls before there was a knock at her door. Not expecting anyone, she went to the door and saw a tired looking Grissom through the peephole. She sighed. She wasn't even wearing matching socks, let alone the rest of her rumpled state. She opened the door, applesauce in hand, and said, "Hey Grissom. Please tell me you haven't come to take me to a new case. I just got home."
"Oh. Ah. No. Actually, this is more of ah…personal assistance."
She gave him a confused look, eating another spoonful of applesauce.
"I'm lost."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "You know Grissom, I think you're more tired than I am. You want me to give you a lift to your house?" she deadpanned.
"That's just it – my house is under extensive construction. My property managers are putting me up here for the duration."
She choked on her applesauce.
His eyes widened and he rushed to say, "Here, that is, in the apartment complex." He handed her a slip of paper with an address on it. "The problem is that I keep getting turned around in these halls and I can't find the place." His frustration was evident and she took pity on him, putting the applesauce with the spoon in it on the kitchen counter.
"It's okay," she said. "It took me a while to get used to this place when I first moved in. I can show you where this is. Come in for a minute while I go grab some shoes."
He stepped through the doorway as she padded across the living room and went into her bedroom. Shit, this place is a mess! He must think I'm such a slob. "Sorry about the mess right now, with all the rush the last couple days my housekeeping has kinda lapsed." She called out from rummaging in her closet. Finding her Birkenstock's, she took off her socks and chucked them into her laundry basket.
"Don't worry about it. I hate to think about what my house looks like right now," he said as she re-entered the living room. She finished pulling her hair back into a ponytail as she reached him at the doorway. Snatching her keys and cell off the counter she gestured for Grissom to precede her. As she locked the door she remembered the applesauce was still on the counter and the TV was still on. Oh well, I won't be that long.
"So how long do they figure you'll be outta your house?"
"Somewhere in the ballpark of two to three weeks. Do you mind if we run out to my car quickly? I just have to grab my bags."
"Sure, sure. No problem." She was still trying to digest this new information. Gil Grissom was going to be her neighbor for a month.
--
Grissom pulled his two bags from the Tahoe, eyeing the butterfly displays. He could come back for them, but he was reluctant to leave them in the hot SUV any longer than necessary. Sara appeared to follow his gaze because she picked up the cases and looked at him expectantly. "That it?" she asked.
"Yes. If you want to lead the way…?" He set down a bag to shut the hatch and locked the car. Sara nodded and waited for him to finish before heading through the maze of hallways. Funny how he had been able to find his way to her apartment. Following her, the hallways began to make more sense and he even saw small signs that he had missed the first time around. She finally came to a stop in front of a door whose number matched the paper he had been given. The silence of the walk hadn't been uncomfortable, surprisingly enough. They were both clearly frazzled. He set down his bags to rummage through his pockets for the set of keys the property manager had given him. While looking down he noticed that Sara had painted her toenails. They were a deep, rich red that begged him to love the long narrow feet of the woman he found so hard to resist. It was quite a surprise to see those toenails peeking out from demure Birkenstock's, especially given the fact that she didn't paint her fingernails or bother much with makeup. He wondered what else he could discover about Sara if he dedicated the time to it.
He got the right key and opened up the door to an oatmeal world – land of the forever beige. Sara raised an eyebrow and gestured with her chin towards the door. "After you. I don't want to deny you the pleasure of crossing the threshold for the first time." She smiled. A very different picture of Sara flooded his mind at her words – one that involved more white than beige. Okay Gil, get a grip. Thank Sara and go to bed. The images went from white to something decidedly less innocent. He picked up the bags and stepped into the smaller, and less cozy, version of Sara's apartment. He felt her arm graze his as she passed him and went into the living room. She set the display cases on the coffee table. She looked up from arranging them and said, "I was getting nervous holding them. I was sure I would drop them."
"I would trust anything I put in your hands to be safe."
She cocked her head to the side and stared at him. He cleared his throat. The sound broke her attention and she blinked her eyes rapidly a couple times. "Well, I left my applesauce sitting out. And you need some sleep. Hell, even I need some sleep. I'll see you later Grissom." He murmured his thanks as she passed him and shut the door behind her. She leant her head back briefly and murmured, "You'd trust me with anything but yourself."
Grissom leant his head against the door, the hallways echoing with Sara's steps.
--
It wasn't too bad, he mused, living near the object of his deeply buried affections. In fact, in a scene reminiscent of "Rear Window", he could actually see her living room window from his new apartment. On the whole, the little apartment provided for him wasn't too bad but he certainly looked forward to being able to return to his townhouse. He had forgotten how confining a one-bedroom apartment could be. Also, whoever had done the decorating for the apartment had clearly decided to err on the side of caution and stuck with a palate of stain hiding browns. He wouldn't be surprised if the furniture was scotch-guarded. He missed his townhouse with all the things that he thought he didn't use, until he didn't have access to them. Like his movies when he couldn't get to sleep. Sitting on the overly firm couch he flipped channels and decided that daytime TV was definitely as bad as he remembered it. He watched as a talk show suddenly exhibited thrown chairs and gratuitous bleeping and thought that it might actually be worse.
He turned off the TV and turned on the radio to NPR as he opened the paper to the daily crossword. He put his feet on the questionably stable coffee table as he began to work on the puzzle. He found his attention drawn to tantalizing glimpses of Sara's apartment. This is wrong, what are you – twelve? Sneaking glances when you think she doesn't notice? Get a grip, Gil. She's your coworker. Respect her privacy. A yellow curtain trailed out the window, teasing him as if he was a bull that could be made to charge at the distraction in front of him. Sara wandered over to the window and adjusted the curtain before going to sit on her couch.
--
Sara pulled the afghan from on top of the couch and tucked it around her lap where she sat. Picking up the bowl of cereal from the coffee table she unenthusiastically turned on the TV. Spooning up the cereal before it could get soggy, she flipped through the channels hoping that something had caused daytime TV to suddenly not suck. She paused on Jerry to see chairs thrown and sentences bleeped out to an ungrammatical extent. Some things never change, she thought. Which was a bad train of thought for her to start on because she automatically thought of Grissom and began to analyze the imagination he used in deflecting her attentions. She knew the man was a genius but the ploys he used were at a grade school level. She paused on Lifetime Network, saw that as usual they were playing some Hallmark movie, and settled on A&E. Cold Cases would be on at some point.
She pushed her spoon through the cereal. The disturbance she caused was quickly enveloped and assimilated by the corn flakes. She blinked back tears. There was no way that she was going to cry because she turned her cereal into a metaphor for her relationship with Grissom. A tear found its way down her cheek and landed on the inert spoon handle. She threw back the afghan and went to the sink, draining off the milk before tossing the remainder of the cereal into the trash. She washed the bowl and spoon, setting them on the drying rack before grabbing the box of corn flakes and throwing it in the trash too. She wiped more tears away. I never liked corn flakes all that much anyway. They get too soggy too quickly. She walked back to the couch with every intention of setting it to rights before going to bed, but found herself instead lying down and holding a throw pillow to her chest as she wept. The whole situation was just so…so…Lifetime Network.
--
He had just crawled into bed after an invigorating bowl of cereal, ready and willing for sleep to take him. Of course his cell phone started its ringing migration across the nightstand just then.
"Grissom," he gruffly said, not bothering to look at caller ID. He'd already taken off his glasses, the person calling could just deal with it. The voice on the other end captured his attention.
"Grissom, I need a favor, no questions asked, right now."
"Well, ah, sure Sara." He rubbed his tired eyes and wondered what emergency would possibly require Sara Sidle to call him. "What can I do for you?"
"Do you have a Costco card?"
--
Sara sighed as she hung up the phone. She hoped that Grissom wouldn't take too long and in the meantime divulged herself of her clothes, chucking them into a basket in the corner of her bedroom. I'll deal with them later. She grabbed a couple of lemons from the bowl in the bathroom and started the tap running while she sat on the toilet lid, spiral cutting the lemons. She needed to take the edge off before Grissom came.
--
