RATING: T for consistency's sake, though it could probably be K+.
SPOILERS: Small spoiler but nothing beyond what's aired in Season 6.
DISCLAIMERS: Afraid I don't own CBS, CSI or any of their affiliates just borrowing them for a little recreation.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I appreciate all your reviews they kept me going when I was having problems with this story. Thank you very much! This is my response for the Unbound challenge for the week of Oct 16 2005 and follows the story started in "You'll Pay" and "Priceless."
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He stared out of the window, seemingly unreachable for anyone. Gil Grissom looked to his co-workers to be a man on the edge. Something had changed and it was tearing him apart. He looked older than he had the shift before.
The team noticed his abnormal silence when he handed out assignments, but had taken their slips and headed out. Greg and Nick on a breaking and entering, Warrick a trick roll and Catherine a rape. Sara would stay in the lab finishing up with evidence from a Casino dumpster. As the shift continued it became more obvious that something was off and the others made Catherine go talk to him.
Sara watched the red head stalk through the lab afterwards; apparently the meeting hadn't gone well. The rapid clicking of Cath's heels, were a loud warning to avoid her wrath. Sara sipped her coffee, debating whether to give him space or to push him as he'd once pushed her. Pouring a second cup of coffee she decided to let him decide.
She leaned in the doorway and watched him. Wondering if this strain and distance were a result of last night. Over the years she had catalogued the slight differences separating Gil from Grissom. Gruesome Grissom was the persona he hid behind at work the logical, unemotional scientist. Versus Gil the guy she'd only seen occasionally since coming to Vegas who cared deeply, but was afraid of being hurt.
Last night had been like a fantastic dream. She didn't want to think of it as one time thing, but was trying to be realistic. A single night didn't wipe out 5 years of experience. Sara understood and accepted that while Gil had enjoyed it Grissom worried that the cost for it would be too high. It had taken a lot of time after Lurie's interrogation to see 'this' from both points of view.
Her instincts however, told her that this distance was different. It wasn't the protective wall between him and his emotions they were used to. Knocking on the door frame she waited a couple heartbeats for his acknowledgement, when none came she stepped into his office anyway. He didn't look up or acknowledge her presence, behavior that would've unnerved the others. She just accepted it at face value.
She'd finally learned not to have expectations or make assumptions about him because those invariably lead to heartache. Instead she tried to accept enjoy being close to him in whatever way he was comfortable with.
She set the hot coffee on a clear spot on the desk in front of him. Then settled into the chair across from him and sipped her coffee. Three feet of desk topped with piles of paperwork and case files separated them physically, but she suspected that the emotional gulf was closer in size to the Grand Canyon. He'd managed to cross the gulf twice for her, after the DUI and then again after her suspension. She owed it to him to at least try.
"Gil did you want to talk about it?"
He blinked a couple times before shifting his focus from the window to the coffee cup. Picking it up he noticed it was from the stash of 'good stuff'. "You called me Gil." He hadn't expected that.
"I thought you could use a friend instead of an employee." She explained simply.
"Is that what we are Sara, friends?"
"In this office I think that's all we can be, but away from work I'd like to think we're more than that." He nodded as he sipped the coffee, grateful he wouldn't have to discuss that aspect of their relationship. Looking up he caught her knowing smile. "You answered my question with a question and managed to not give me an answer. Is it because you don't have an answer or just don't want to talk about it here?"
"There was a second voice on Nick's tape." She nodded, but didn't interrupt him. "I had a nightmare about it before work. It was so real Sara. Helplessly watching you suffer on the screen instead of Nick. Unable to distance myself enough to focus on the case," Sara had had similar nightmares herself, but hadn't expected him to open up about his. "And it cost you your life." The last words were choked out in the barest whisper, his eyes closed, but the tension she saw revealed he felt more than he'd said and this admission was hard for him.
Leaning forward she closed the physical gulf between them. "Gil?" He opened his eyes at her quiet entreaty. "Give me your hand." Removing his hand from around the coffee cup, watching silently as she took it and placed two fingers of his fingers on her wrist. "It was a dream, this is real." He could feel her pulse a steady comforting rhythm beneath his fingers that matched his own.
"I have had dreams and I have had nightmares, but I have conquered my nightmares because of my dreams." He smiled than cited the source before she asked. "Katherine Mansfield."
She nodded and smiled. He must be feeling better if he was quoting. "Well I gotta see Hodges before shift ends." She stopped turning back to lean against the doorframe again. "You know that offer still stands Griss, to sleep with me." She paused letting her suggestion sink in, smiling at his unconscious physical reactions. Eyes darkening slightly, breathing shallowing, and a quick moistening of his lips. She filed the reactions away to be examined and explored after shift. "Maybe we could help each other silence the screams we hear in our dreams."
Intense blue eyes locked on brown trying to gauge her seriousness. He marveled at what he saw there and how much their relationship had changed in the last twenty four hours. As she left he found himself thinking. Maybe changes weren't so bad after all.