Chapter Nineteen

II

Happily ever after.

Almost all fairytales ended so, so Sara weren't surprised as she read the words and pushed the book aside. Fairytales weren't life, but they spoke volumes about what people wanted from life. Some riches, evil defeated, love found and won. And happily ever after. No one ever wrote tales about that part, though.

The bed was soft under her and she felt strangely conscious of sleeping naked with the sun slipping across her back. Not that she could sleep. She should be exhausted with all that had happened and the little sleep she'd had, but her mind and body wasn't buying that. And so she had stayed awake, reading the book Grissom had lent her.

Fairytales.

And strangely, she could almost feel what Anna must have, suddenly getting what you'd secretly longed for all along. Anna found her father. Sara had found Grissom. Or perhaps Grissom had found her.

He had taken her to breakfast and talked of Norwegian bugs, and she knew it was his way of sharing. He hadn't kissed her again, but he had touched her, even held her hand as they'd witnessed Anna's funeral. A start. It felt equal parts rebuilding and new building, a construct of… Something.

The day she figured out just what was between Grissom and her was the day she was the greatest CSI ever, she mused and the thought brought a twisted smile to her lips. But at least there was something, even if it bore no name for now.

Her eyes fell on the book again and she watched the sunlight engulf it, almost as the sun was reading it too. In Norwegian fairytales, nature had characters and personalities. The sun, the moon, the northern wind, alive as people were, as the land was.

Anna's land.

'Did you lie awake like this the night before you left for Las Vegas and your death, Anna?' Sara thought, resting her head against the pillow.

The funeral had been familiar and unfamiliar at once, the rituals slightly different, the grief much the same. Anna had been loved. And for that, Sara felt a strange envy. The only love she had known in her childhood had become tainted, dark, bloody. Love killed.

Perhaps that was why she so often sought in men she knew wouldn't give it to her. A pattern, set already in her childhood. But patterns could be laid anew, as long as there was life.

She closed her eyes and imagined Grissom's touch on her naked back, making new patterns on her skin, chasing all the ghosts away. Caressing her without gloves, without boundaries.

The knock on the door was soft, as was the voice drifting through it, but it still tore her away from the mind's desires.

"Sara?"

"Grissom?" she asked, sitting up. For a moment, she wondered if he was here for her daydream, but she discarded that idea. Not yet, no.

"I didn't wake you?"

"No. It's hard to sleep with this sun."

"Yeah. You should get dressed. There's been a development. Bring your kit."

"I'll be right there," she replied, getting up. The carpet felt soft against her feet as she dressed, wondering what was going on. A confession? Something happening in Las Vegas? Warrick and Catherine had been all right, there couldn't be a new crisis there, could there?

Both Grissom and Greg were waiting in the hallway when she exited and she drew a slight sigh of relief. They both looked serious, but not distraught. It had to be case related, not personal.

She felt a twinge of guilt at her relief and was glad she felt it. The day she stopped feeling it, she would probably make a poorer CSI.

"One of Anna's friends, a Kristin Helsvik, was admitted to hospital. She'd been complaining of stomach craps and pains for a few days. Lithium carbonate overdose. They think she'll make it. The police has asked us to assist since the two cases seem connected. We'll meet Mr. Bjørnvik at the girl's house," Grissom explained, voice calm and detached and all professional.

"They don't think it's a suicide attempt then?"

"Never rule anything out," Greg shot in and Grissom closed his mouth, looking vaguely annoyed for a moment.

"Right, Greg."

She bit back a smile as they walked down. Greg could be such a mini-Grissom sometimes, only younger and brighter. She wasn't sure the Las Vegas lab was quite equipped for dealing with two Grissoms, though. She wasn't even sure she was equipped to deal with one.

Grissom smiled almost seductively at her and she thought maybe, just maybe, she was after all.

II

Kristin Helsvik had a small house in an Oslo suburb, ivy climbing the outside wall to her window. Growing wild, always upwards, always reaching. A tree was lowering its branches over the roof, and it almost felt like a wall of nature protecting, too, like an illusion of safety.

Vegard Bjørnvik was waiting for them, looking tired, but still flashing her a smile and something flashed across Grissom's face so fast she almost thought she'd imagined it. Jealousy? Possessiveness? Annoyance?

"Drug seems to have been ingested," Vegard said calmly, probably unaware of Grissom's reaction. "My guys are looking through anything that could have been eaten in there."

"Anyone looked at the trash yet?" Sara asked and got a head shake in return. "May I?"

"Knock yourself out," Vegard replied, sounding amused. "Not afraid to get dirty?"

"I never am," she smiled, but the smile was directed to Grissom and the look he gave her back felt so intimate she wondered if the whole land couldn't help but notice. And then it slipped away, as Grissom turned to Greg and she felt strangely bereft for a moment.

"Let us aid our Norwegian colleagues, young Sanders."

"Yes, Master Grissom," Greg replied mockingly and gave her a cheerful wave as he followed Grissom inside. Vegard lingered outside and she realised he was going to watch her work. For legal reasons, perhaps, but it still felt a bit intrusive as she slapped on gloves and approached the bins. Both were steel and without wheels, so clearly Norwegian garbage collection was a different deal then Nevada's. The smell was much the same, though.

And the content wasn't that much different either, she concluded as she bagged whatever might have been eaten or had held food. Plastic, leftover food, containers with foreign names. The other bin was clearly for paper and cardboard, and it didn't take long to realise Kristin was fond of frozen pizza.

"Grand-i-oza," Sara read, wondering if she was documenting the Norwegian equivalent of eating only take-out. "Pepperoni flavour."

"Most eaten food of Norway," Vegard said, giving another small smile.

"And here I thought you all ate fish," she remarked, flipping the box over and noticing the note sticking to it. A yellow Post-It, ink smudged in a few places but still readable. If one read Norwegian.

Vegard seemed to take the hint and leaned forward.

"I had some to spare. Have fun on the outing. Anna," he translated and met her gaze.

"I don't think this was attached to the frozen pizza. Probably stuck to it when the note was thrown in the paper trash," Sara muttered, mostly to herself. Could Kristin have been drugged by the same source as Anna? If so, what had Anna given Kristin? "What would you bring to an outing in Norway?"

"Hot dogs and meat for barbecuing. Salad, maybe. Bread."

"Buns?" she asked, holding up a bagged half-eaten bun.

"Buns," Vegard agreed. "I'll get a priority on it."

She nodded, taking time to file through the rest of what was there, just to make sure she didn't miss something. If you focused on the evidence you had already found while working the scene, you could miss evidence still to be found. Grissom had told her that, a lifetime ago in a seminar room, looking at her with a gaze she had been captured in ever since.

Moments, later, she felt it on her, and turned to see Grissom had joined them outside.

"Possible source: Buns Anna gave her," she declared, holding up the bagged bun and bagged note both.

"Good work, Sara," Grissom replied, but the true compliment was in his voice, sounding satisfied and appreciative without being flirty. Sara, the woman, wanted him, yes, but the CSI in her wanted him to see value in her work equally much. Almost, at least. She was never sure which part of her was the strongest, as it changed every day.

"You find anything?"

He shrugged. "Remains to be seen."

"It always does," she said lightly and Grissom nodded, as if agreeing to something her voice had said, but her words hadn't. Perhaps she had been thinking of more than the case, but it was hard not to. Grissom was Grissom, always and ever, and it was hard to think of work-Grissom differently than the man who had pinned her beneath him and kissed memories away.

She would have to learn how to, if this something was to work at all, but for now, she let herself look at him and see only Grissom, Grissom whose touch was fire and cool both. Grissom, who had let go a little bit and let her in.

New land, new territory, new start, new relationship. It wouldn't be happily ever after or a fairytale, she knew already. It might turn out to be nothing at all. But for a brief, sun-captured moment as she handed Grissom the evidence bags and his hand brushed hers, she felt happy.