Chapter Two
II
A wind stirred and died; the sun tore across the sky in the ever illusion that it was the sun that moved and the Earth stood still and watched. Sara was a scientist, she knew it was the opposite. But sometimes, even scientists needed illusions. Sometimes, illusions were all between you and the abyss.
She stood still in Grissom's doorway, watching the emptiness. Strange, but it seemed almost like the office had a stronger presence of Grissom when he was not there. Perhaps he had left so much of himself here that there was less and less of him left in the shell of his body. Or perhaps it had always been so and she had only now started to notice.
It was a morbid thought, but she could not quite shake it. Grissom felt more distant now than when she had been in San Francisco and he here. For every step she had fought herself into his life he seemed to slip away from it himself. It was as if he stalked the peripheries of his own life and now he was grimmer, older, almost darker. Certainly not more emotional available than when she first came. So what good had anything done? She could have stayed by the sea and lived in the illusion that near him, they could have built a life together. Here, the illusion died a little every day.
And yet, she still felt something. She still desired him, still felt that which she dared not name. For all he had stood still and never welcomed her advances, she still wanted to push them on him, still wanted to chase him.
It wasn't that she desired him to save her or sweep her off her feet and make her life a fairytale. It was merely that she wanted to make each night a little less dark sleeping near him. And each day of life a little more alive from his smile.
Grissom had once told her she needed a diversion. And she had quitely thought he could be hers and they could ride roller coasters together.
Sighing, she continued her search, giving Nick a nod as she passed him in the hallway. He looked grim too, but he was still the bright, sunny boy. Summer to Grissom's winter. And she herself was autumn, sometimes as warm as summer and sometimes a wind away from winter. She wondered sometimes if she was becoming Grissom, if that was why he staying away, as if afraid to pull her deeper into his own season.
He would walk on the edge of the human abyss and not fall. She was not sure she could.
'Or perhaps I fell in the abyss long ago,' she thought and felt the chill of memories knocking at the door in her mind she kept them trapped behind. One day they would break through, the logical part of her knew, but it drowned in the fear. One day would not be today, forever not today if she could just stay strong and alive.
She finally found Grissom among the dead, in the quiet of the morgue with the victim. His face was so gentle her heart nearly jumped, and she watched him leaning over their victim with a sense of longing. Sometimes, she almost envied the dead for all the care Grissom showed them. She could almost imagine herself there, pale and cold and naked on steel and his eyes brushing her face lovingly.
She could almost want it.
Belatedly, she noticed Doc Robbins looking up at her, and she slipped out of the doorway and into the room, resisting the urge to step too close to Grissom.
"She died from a fatal dose of lithium carbonate," Robbins announced, more to her than to Grissom, who did not even look up. Clearly, he had already heard. She wondered what he was silently communicating to the victim - his promise to find the killer? Or his sympathy? His understanding?
"That's used in treatment of some mental disorders, isn't it?" she asked, looking at Anna's still face. No sign of despair or a troubled mind. But the harsh light of the morgue chased away any illusions of sleeping. And yet she was still beautiful, even in death.
'Cinderella,' Sara thought and felt a chill.
"Bipolar disorder, among others. I also found traces of Histamine," Robbins went on, and now Grissom did look up, eyes light and a shield of his mind. She never could feel what he was thinking, not even when he looked at her and she felt as if her thoughts and heart lay bare before him that surely he had to see.
"For travel sickness?" he asked, his voice nothing, merely even.
"Yes. My guess is the fatal dose was digested. I found no needle marks on her body," Robbins explained, looking down on the victim. "Gil, this woman has been dying for days. The dose was administered before she got on that plane. There is extensive damage to the liver and the soft tissue. Even if she had sought medical assistance, it may have been too late. "
"That makes our crime scene an ocean away," Grissom said softly, turning to her. For a moment, she thought she might drown in his gaze. Then his attention slipped away, as it always did. "Thanks, doc."
She followed him out, the light of the hallway seeming harsh after the subdued light of the morgue. Brighter still waited the sun outside, a fire of summer. She found herself wondering if she could pull Grissom with her and find somewhere green to sit and be burned together. But she fought back the urge to ask. It was a fantasy, an illusion, a trick of light.
But his hair would still feel soft to braid her fingers through in the heat of summer.
"Our crime scene?" she asked instead. "From what doc Robbins say, she was killed in Norway. That makes it a matter for the Norwegian authorities."
"But her body is here," he replied calmly, but his voice still held what she had come to recognise as Grissom steel. "That makes it a matter for me."
She nodded, more to herself than him. She had known what he would say. It was after all why she had felt drawn to him even across a lecture hall. This was not just a career to him, but a calling. As it had been to her, for a whole different reason.
But justice for Anna, for Kaye, for all the murders they had solved would still not bring justice for a terrified child with a murdered father and a murderer for mother. No silence for the demons. And the memories seemed more than mere recollections. It was refeeling, reseeing, reliving. And the outcome remained the same.
She let out a slow breath and was herself again, adult and safe and devoid of blood. Grissom was looking at her, head titled, as if regarding just another puzzle. Perhaps that was all humans were to him, for all his gentleness.
Perhaps that was unkind. He was 'concerned' for her, and what he had confessed to Dr. Lurie still echoed in her mind at the still of night sometimes. It had not been quite a declaration and not intended for her. But perhaps what he had felt had not been quite love, either.
"So..." she offered, "ehm... I've scanned the various prints we've recovered from the plane, but if it not our crime scene, there may not be much in it."
"Mmm," he said non-committedly, snapping the gloves off as they walked along. He looked almost excited, and she had a feeling something was going on just beyond what she could see. Maybe she could sit on Greg until he told her. Provided Greg did know. Perhaps she should just go for the source and sit on Grissom.
She couldn't avoid smiling slightly at the mental image and Grissom raised an eyebrow slightly before mirroring her smile. For a moment, it felt almost like an echo of a happier past, when she and Grissom still danced lightly on the edges of flirting.
Almost.
The past didn't come erased. Blood didn't come undone. She knew that well enough.
"Brass is looking at the passenger manifest," he said, ripping the mood. "Still no word on the father's identity."
"If there is a father."
"Why else would she come all the way to Las Vegas?"
"See the sights? Gambling? Boyfriend?" she suggested. He made a slight grimace, his footsteps hardly any sound at all as he walked beside her. He seemed to walk awkwardly sometimes and she wondered if he was so lost walking in his mind he did not think much about walking the world.
"This far for a boyfriend?"
"People travel far for the possibility of love."
'I did,' she thought, unable to keep the thought away. Perhaps the same thought occurred to Grissom, for something almost like guilt seemed to flash across his face. A second later it was gone and perhaps she had merely imagined it just as she had imagined a million other expressions, looks, touches, words... An imagined life.
"She must have been brave to come that far for a possible fairytale," he said after a moment, and she looked up sharply. But his face was even and he was looking ahead, not at her.
"Yeah," she replied and felt almost foolish. The victim. But for a moment, it had almost seemed he was speaking of her. If his voice had been unusually soft, it could be for many reasons.
She gave him a sideway glance. You never did know with Grissom. He lived in puzzles and mysteries and made his life puzzles and mysteries. Every time she thought she had found the final piece, she realised another was hidden. She might not ever really know him. Some pieces had to be given, not found, and Grissom was not the sharing kind.
"You need a holiday," he said suddenly, as calmly as bringing up the time line of rigor mortis.
"What?" she asked, halting. Grissom walked on and she stared after him, considering which blunt object to cause massive head trauma with if he dared tell her she needed a life, a diversion or time off.
"I hear Norway is lovely this time of year!" he called after her and smiled, eyes twinkling. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Only Grissom would consider solving a murder a holiday.
Maybe she wouldn't have to sit on him after all, she decided as she chased after him and the Earth moved on, always in the illusion that it didn't. Perhaps the illusion didn't matter and it merely mattered that there was movement.
And smiling lightly at her hurry, he halted. Waiting for her.
Maybe the illusion did matter after all.
