Sara shut the door, her fingers straying on the handle for a lingering moment before turning around to face Grissom. He had sat down on her couch and was flipping through an article she had dog-eared in one of her magazines.
"Aside from the reading material, was there a reason you decided to come over?"
"When I woke up, I tried to determine whether I was still drunk. I tried to take into consideration my weight, the amount of scotch I had imbibed, over how long a period of time compared with how much other fluids I had drank and food I had eaten. I was in the middle of all this when I decided it didn't matter whether I was sober or not – my feelings would still be the same." He had been flipping through the magazine while talking but now he looked up at her, his blue eyes intent upon her face. She could lose herself in the changing color of his eyes – the way they could sparkle and how quickly she could be absorbed into their depths.
Sara wondered if all that time with his head up his ass had dulled some of his finer sensibilities. "You've never said you loved me. Half of the time I can't even tell if you want to be friends with me." He winced at her words but didn't appear to be surprised.
"So what, Griss? No appropriate quotes for the situation? No let me count the ways I love you? No depths and breadths and heights that your soul could reach?"
Grissom looked at her for a moment before responding, "I don't think that Elizabeth Barrett Browning is terribly applicable to our situation." He gave a slight smirk. "I might perhaps say 'I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.'"
"And then I guess I might suggest 'I do not love you except because I love you; I go from loving to not loving you, from waiting to not waiting for you my heart moves from cold to fire.'" Her eyes bore into his, willing him to respond to five years of anticipation and rejection.His smirk disappeared and was replaced by something more wistful as he said, "Don't leave me for a second, my dearest, because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking, Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?"
Sara cursed her wavering voice as she said, "In this part of the story I am the one who dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you, because I love you, Love, in fire and blood."
Grissom reached out a hand and traced his fingers down her jawbone as he said, "I can write the saddest lines tonight. To think I don't have her, to feel I have lost her. Here the vast night, more vast without her. Lines fall on the soul like dew on the grass. What does it matter that I could not keep her. The night is fractured and she is not with me. That is all. Someone sings far off. Far off, my soul is not content to have lost her."
Sara leant her head into Grissom's caress, his fingernails grazing her lips with her head's movement. "We could quote all kinds of things Gil, but they wouldn't be our words." She said quietly. "All we can do with our words is tease and hurt each other, no matter how we wish for greater eloquence. There is only this –" She stepped back, creating the smallest pocket of air between them. " – our bodies communicate far more than our voices ever could." Grissom slowly lowered his arm to gesture in the air between their torsos; the movement caused air to shift over Sara's bare arms and she shivered.
"What if I know what to do about this now?"
And Gil Grissom managed to do what she had thought was impossible – he surprised her by tucking a hand behind her back and drawing her into his body and his lips. It was hardly how she had envisioned their first kiss – certainly the spontaneity was expected but for some reason she had never pictured it happening in her living room. It was nice. Fuck that, it was more than nice. His beard tickled her cheeks and after a startled second she closed her eyes and leant into him. His hands entangled themselves in her hair, as if he wanted to pull her into his body. His soft lips, he must use chapstick, teased her own. He gently nibbled and sucked on her lower lip and a breathy moan escaped from her mouth into his. His tongue grazed the corner of her mouth, gaining entrance to make her appreciate anew the subtleties of the body's nerve receptors. She felt his smile against hers as they stopped, foreheads touching as if to commune in some mind meld where words wouldn't get in the way. She breathed in deeply, wanting to savor the smell of him and the mint mouthwash she had tasted on his tongue. Grissom released a slow sigh that made Sara want to kiss him again. He spoke instead.
"I know your feelings for me may have changed, but I thought maybe we could have dinner…see what happens?"
"You're cheating," she murmured. "That's my line."
He gave her a sheepish smile and said, "How about breakfast?"
--
A/N: Okay, I know that is such a tease but don't go running off into the woods yet! There's still more, and I know you don't want to miss the ending, right?
Notes: The poetry Sara and Gil are quoting is by Pablo Neruda. Sara's quotes are from "I do not love you except because I love you." Gil's quotes are from "Love Sonnet XVII", "Don't go far off, not even for a day" and "Saddest Poem" respectively. The man was amazing, if you can read in Spanish I envy you the ability to read the original text but there are some damn fine translations out there.
