Chapter Nine

Author's Note: If you are interested in reading an English version of the fairytale, you can find one online. The address is three times w dot mythfolklore dot net slash adrewland slash 323 dot htm. However, I have translated it myself for the quotes used in this story and words might therefore differ.

II

Summer lingered over Norway, sun shining, the land crashing into the sea.

It was a strange country, Grissom reflected, having been shaped by the glaciers and the Atlantic into mountains meeting fjords. Oslo meeting the Oslo fjord below him, the sea brushing up against the city. A still sea now, an inviting blanket of glimmering blue rather than a rage of waves. Boats and sails dotted on it, a larger cruise boat was lying at the harbour. Ever present, the sea, much like the Nevada desert in Las Vegas. Even out of sight you could still sense it.

Here Anna Jensen had grown up. He could almost see her, sitting at the bench he used, watching the city from the heights. Closing her eyes to the sun or perhaps reading as he had been. Perhaps even reading the same story, though probably in Norwegian rather than English.

Young, reading Anna, about to seek the winds to find her father. A father still unknown. No evidence of him brought to life, yet his shadow loomed over Anna's life and death as the mountains over the land.

Grissom let out a sigh. He was starting to obsess over this mysterious father rather than on finding the evidence. Perhaps because in this case the evidence had so far been slight, the death and the murder separated by time and an ocean.

"You know, we did come here to work," an amused voice said and he looked up at Sara Sidle slipping her shades off and looking at him. "Our good Norwegian officer told me you had headed here."

"I am working. I'm thinking," he answered and stood up. She seemed to beam with the summer, light blue cotton of her top matching the sky, her smile more radiant than the sun.

"Thinking? While Greg and I worked the apartment?"

"Find anything?"

"Maybe." Her face clouded slightly. "The Norwegian police had been pretty thorough, but we did find some Histamine, which might confirm that was hers at least. It's being tested to confirm it is what it says it is. Greg headed to the Institute of Forensic Medicine. I think he's pretty excited to see it, actually."

Grissom chuckled slightly.

"What's the book?" she asked, tilting her head slightly to attempt to read the title.

"I'm reading the fairytale Mrs. Jensen mentioned. East of the sun and west of the moon it was, that she knew, 'and there you arrive late or never.' Interesting story."

"I guess in Anna's case it was never."

He nodded, watching a myriad of expressions flicker across her face. Did she think of her own family, her own father, now lost to her?

"Nothing haunts like loving a ghost," she said and he knew she had been. "You do love your parents, even when they are beyond your reach."

"Yes," he agreed and thought of his own father, a fleeting thought before he locked it away again where it should be. "And even beyond reach, we still try to find the impossible."

"East of the sun, west of the moon," she echoed and looked thoughtful.

"Yes," he replied, feeling a slight breeze cool his skin. It smelled slightly of sea and he wondered how far it had travelled. Perhaps it had come all the way across the Atlantic, bringing sea salt with it as it went.

"So why are you reading Norwegian fairytales on the top of a hill?" she asked, looking out over the city sprawled below. "The view?"

"No, the Corkscrew."

"What?" She looked confused and he smiled, unable to keep some amusement from his voice.

"The Corkscrew," he repeated, indicating the area around them. "This downhill is called 'the Corkscrew'. It's a popular destination in winter, I understand. Our vic came here often. She liked to slide down it when it was covered by snow."

Sara gave him an incredulous look. "And you came here to soak in its spirit to better understand the case?"

"Something like that."

"Sometimes Grissom, you're weird even for you."

He smiled at her. "Good."

She shook her head at him, but a smile did haunt her lips and suddenly, he felt strangely happy. The sun was warm, the air smelled of trees and flowers and grass and Sara was smiling at him. And he didn't feel quite like Gil Grissom, as if he had left that skin behind and wore another for the Norwegian sky. Another skin that looked at Sara Sidle in light, not in shadows.

And in light, she was beautiful.

Perhaps that was why his resolve died.

Perhaps that was why he took her hands and watched her lips being caressed by the sun.

Perhaps that was why he caught a strand of her hair and felt it be silky under his fingertips.

Perhaps that was why he kissed her.

She seemed to expect it, for her lips were warm and soft in greeting, if a little hesitant. He didn't blame her. He felt like a fumbling teenager himself, as if this was his first kiss and innocence had returned.

'New skin,' he thought and she parted her lips and he tasted ice cream mingled with her. Innocence and ice cream and summer, Gil and Sara, a first kiss.

She leaned against him, but he dared not put his arms around her, dared nothing but stand still and gently kiss her. Anything more and he might be lost, as he had always feared he would be in her embrace. Lose yourself in someone and you risked hurt, risked being know, risked life.

It was she who finally broke away, eyes searching his face. He dared touch her cheek then, feeling her skin aflame under his palm. He knew there was a lot she'd want to ask, want to know, perhaps even had a right to.

What did that mean? How do you feel about me? What do you want?

But she didn't ask, she merely watched his face and breathed and he found himself strangely wondering just when she'd had the ice cream and if Greg had shared it. Bright, cheerful Greg, Greg who would probably be better for her, yet...

"I don't get you sometimes, Grissom," she said quietly.

'I don't get myself sometimes,' he thought, but dared not say it. Too close to a glimpse into his mind and he felt vulnerable already.

"I know," he said instead. Reluctantly, he stepped away from her, feeling an urge to shove his hands into his pockets. She was still looking at him, but he couldn't read her eyes. So much he could say, but he didn't and he just stood there helplessly.

He didn't realise he'd dropped his book until she reached down and picked it up, brushing grass off it.

"Anna's fairytale," she said, a hint of sadness in her voice. He watched her eyes slip across the words and some of them echoed in his mind.

"Can you tell me the road, so I can look for you; that I may be allowed to?" said she.

Yes, he could; but there was no road there, it lay east of the sun and west of the moon, and there she would never find.

'Yet she did find it in the end,' he thought, 'and took her love home with her.'

"Can I borrow it?"

"Yeah," he replied and burned the sight of her into his mind, to live forever in his memories. Sara Sidle in blue and sunlight, lips dark from his kiss, western wind in her hair. Whatever else he might never do, he would at least know now what it was like kissing her under the sky.

And as much as he could feel a dark fear in his mind scream at him that it was a mistake, he found he didn't regret it. Not this Gil Grissom, watching the sun on the sea glimmering at him, water breaking light. The other Gil Grissom, who would be waiting in Las Vegas, he might.

Humans did sometimes do odd things when abroad and he had been feeling different ever since landing. Jet-lag, the scientist in him considered dryly. Perhaps a part of him merely slept at day and woke at night, still unfamiliar with the patterns of this country.

And when he woke, then what?

They headed downhill in silence and spoke lightly about the case on the way back to the hotel. It was a safe topic for discussion and he suspected she felt at much emotionally cast adrift after the kiss as he did, judging by her slight glances at him.

Traffic in Oslo had increased as they came into the city heart, but even that felt more leisurely than traffic in Las Vegas. Perhaps merely a deception from being smaller, but the feeling was still true.

"Mr. Grissom, you were asked to call Captain Brass as soon as possible," the receptionist called out as they passed into the lobby and out of the sun.

"Thanks," he called back and quickly calculated time difference. It had to be morning in Las Vegas now, another hot day in the Nevada desert starting. A good time to call.

"Maybe he got a break in Las Vegas," Sara said as they walked up. He shrugged. Perhaps it was the elusive father at last. It was odd that the father had not identified himself if he had been expecting his daughter and she hadn't turned up. But perhaps she had been meaning to surprise him and he had simply not heard the news. There could be many reasons, but it still bothered Grissom.

He went into his room and reached for the phone, Sara remaining in the doorway. It took two tries to get all the numbers in the right line, but finally, Las Vegas crackled into his ear.

"Brass."

"You rang?" Grissom replied, watching Sara flicker through his book and lean against the doorway. She gave him a quick smile, but even as he felt his lips curve up to return it, Brass's voice slammed into him and left him cold and breathless.

"Gil, we have a situation here..."