disclaimer: I do not own CSI
AN: Thousand thanks to Alex for being the best beta reader in the world!
Only one more chap to go...enjoy: )
chapter 13
She was gone. She had left him. He couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe that he had been stupid enough to let this go out of hand. Stupid enough to let her leave...to make her want to leave.
He knew what she thought, he knew he should have told her that she was wrong, he knew he should have showed her that the lie had ended a long time ago and that his feelings were real that he needed her, wanted her with him. He should have told her that the reason for his change in mind, that the reason why he wanted his mother to know the truth was that his feelings for her were real, that he really loved her and that he wanted his mother to know about his real, true feelings for her.
But he had done neither of that. He had just told her that he wanted his mother to know the truth, that he wanted to tell his mother that they were not engaged, that they were not even involved, that he had just made up this lie because he hadn't felt comfortable with the thought of her thinking that he was gay. He told her that he just couldn't do it anymore, that it had been easy as long as his mother hadn't known her, as long as they hadn't met. Now they knew each other and Gretchen liked Sara so much, it would hurt him, he said, it would hurt him that his mother believed such a lie, that she was fooled by such a lie.
He had seen tears rising up in her eyes, had seen desperation and sadness and pain in them and he knew he should have taken her into his arms. He knew he should have held her close to him and should have told her that he loved her, that this lie would end but that the things that had been happening between them in these last days had been true. That the things that had so rapidly changed between them had changed forever and would never change again.
He knew now what had always been the reason for his denial. He knew that it had been the fear of being known by her, the fear that she would know him better than he knew himself...the fear to let her into his life, to let her be part of his life...
In less than three days she had become the most important part of his life. It was ridiculous somehow, he thought, ridiculous that it had taken him years to hold her hand and only half a day to make her a part of his life, two more to make her an essential part of himself.
That was just not him. He had never known he could change like that, could do something like this ...he had to admit that he had never really known himself until now.
He sat on the sofa not able to even think of entering the bedroom. There he had made love to Sara, had been with her, so close to her, closer than he ever thought he could and at the same time he had destroyed it all, had destroyed everything that had happened between them...
He stared down on the telephone in his hands. He had tried to reach her at her apartment, had tried to call her cell, had also tried to call her at the lab. She had never answered any of his calls. He'd been trying it for hours, had left uncountable messages on her answering machine, had desperately begged her to call him.
He figured what she was thinking if he'd be in her shoes he'd think the same. She probably thought that he was just calling to make her come back because he had changed his mind about telling his mother the truth...
Maybe it had been doomed to failure from the beginning on. How could he just think that they could live in a relationship that had been built up on a lie?
When Sara had furiously left the house he had been running after her, had followed her to her car, had tried to convince her to stay...his mistake had been that he hadn't used the right arguments. That he had tried to convince her with rationalism...and the heart doesn't think rational. It was her heart that he'd been breaking and nothing else.
When he'd entered the house again Gretchen had been standing in the hallway asking him what was up. He hadn't told her the truth. He had told her that Sara had been called in for work that they had needed either him or her to come to the lab and that she had offered to go. Another lie but it was easier than telling his mother the truth, the whole truth.
He had cancelled their plans for the afternoon, Gretchen hadn't been sad about it. She had been reading in one of her books, had flicked through the pages of some magazines and had called it a night early.
It was after 10 pm and still Sara didn't answer his calls. He wondered if he should drive to her apartment but he didn't know if she wanted him there. Suddenly he heard his mother's footsteps in the hallway again.
/Is Sara still at work /
He chewed on his bottom lip /Yeah, I don't know when she'll be back./
Gretchen nodded softly, walked over to the kitchen and returned with a pot of ice-cream and two spoons. Grissom smiled to himself recalling the ritual they had when he had been a child. When he hadn't been able to sleep his mother had always brought him ice cream, they had shared it and she had been telling him a tale or a story from her youth while they ate. At one point he had always been falling asleep, with the spoon in his mouth and a happy grin on his lips. That was what Gretchen always told him.
/Ice cream/ she offered and he gratefully accepted. /You two had an argument, right /
Grissom sighed. /Yeah./ He swallowed a big portion of ice cream and the cold ran through his body.
/She's not at work, is she /
/I don't know where she is. I tried to call her cell but she didn't answer it./
He actually didn't want to talk about it, he didn't want his mother to know about it at all but it was better to tell her some parts than to allow her mind to make up it's own speculations about what had happened.
Gretchen looked at him, her blue eyes were filled with sadness. /Try to find her./
/I don't know where to search for her Mom. She's not at the lab...I don't know where else she could be./
/You're almost married to her and you don't know her favorite places or where her closest friends live / She asked unbelieving.
He swallowed hard. He didn't know. How could he? He had been only interested in himself for the longest time of his life... He should have told his mother about their lie right then but he just couldn't. He thought about his options. He could go and find her, he could continue trying to call her although that was obviously in vein or he could just stay here and forget about her, something he knew he couldn't.
He left his seat, grabbed his keys and told his mother that he'd try to find her. He left his house, entered his car and started it, only to turn off the engine again three minutes later.
Where should he search for her? Her apartment would be a good place to start but wasn't it an too obvious place to hide? Or was it that obvious that it already wasn't obvious at all? What the hell was he thinking?
He started the engine of his Denali and headed to her apartment. Halfway there he was stopped by a traffic jam. He opened his cell phone and called her number again. This time he would talk until the damn answering machine would kick him out, he would pretend to know that she was sitting in front of it and was listening to every word he said.
"This is the answering machine of Sara Sidle, I am not at home at the moment, I bet you know what to do but for the ones who don't, just leave a message after the tone."
He waited for the tone, for about the one hundredth time today. Just from hearing the voice on her answering machine his heart began to beat faster. God, he missed her.
"Sara, it's me again. Listen I know that you are there, I'm on my way to your apartment. We need to talk Sara. Please. Not about this goddamned favor, not about this charade that we played. We need to talk about us. Sara, I know I should have corrected my comments, I should have made clear that I was not including the happenings between the two of us into this lie. Sara, everything that happened between us was..."
And at that point the answering machine kicked him out. He dialled her number again, but before her could press the green button to start the call his cell vibrated in his hand.
On the display the words /Sara cell/ blinked up. He answered her call with shaking hands. "Sara?"
"Yes." She almost whispered
"Sara where are you?" He knew he sounded more than worried but he didn't care.
"I'm knocking at your door like an idiot waiting for someone to let me in. Where are you?"
"On my way to your apartment."
She laughed without making sounds, but he knew that she was laughing. "Great."
"Sara I need to tell you something, but I can't do it on the phone. Please wait for me...I'll be there in twenty minutes. Don't leave again, please."
"Tell me something about what?"
He sighed. "Us."
"We are an 'Us' ?" She asked softly.
"I hope that we are." He confessed.
TBC
thanks for reading! last chap should be up either on saturday or sunday : )