II
Autumn
II
There were some things Gil Grissom wouldn't tell his mother.
Not of his first kiss, fumbled and sticky and awkward with ice cream on his chin and young Jessica on his lips. Not of his 'D' in one biology test, the shame of it hot and burning, like a swallowed flame. Not of his little grasshopper under the bed that died in winter and left him grieving until he discovered he could study it even dead.
And not of the longing somewhere inside him for her voice to sing a lullaby, passing him from awake to sleep in the safety of her voice.
After a while, he made his own safety, but he didn't forget.
II
Wind against the window, tapping, tapping, tapping, a relentless force, a lullaby for summer, a vessel for autumn. The heat was already fading, the sun growing more distant every day. No shedding of leaves in the desert, but shedding of the sun burning still.
"Grissom?"
"Yeah?"
"Something moved."
He turned to the other body in his bed, the skin he'd grown used to waking up clinging to. Sara. Sara Sidle plus one, in his home.
Quietly, he put his hand on her stomach, knowing it was a little early to feel the baby move yet, but wanting still to share the illusion. It would be real soon enough.
"I'm being silly again, aren't I?" she asked, and he laced his hand in hers.
"Yes."
"Don't feel like you have to shield my feelings, or anything."
"I never much did, did I?"
"No."
The little words always hurt the most, he knew. They carried the truth, but between the two there had to be truth and pain, or it never did last. Maybe that was why he had been afraid, was afraid. Seek safety in solitude and there was no pain.
And no bonds of pain to make you feel alive.
"I can't promise to change," he whispered, one hand in hers, one hand on the life inside her. One hand on life, ever so fragile.
"I know. I'm here anyway."
II
Like wind, the rumours swept through the crime lab. He knew what they said. He could read them in people's gazes and silences. Sara Sidle had moved to dayshift. Gil Grissom was taking on more teaching. Catherine Willows was taking on more supervising. Ecklie was looking sour. Two plus two equalled the inevitable.
Sara Sidle had gotten what he wanted, the rumours whispered.
And he could tell it was troubling her from the way she bit her lip ever so slightly, the slight shadow in her eyes. He couldn't change time. He couldn't turn the wind.
"I'm sorry," he told her one day, passing her in the hallway.
"I didn't ask you to be!" she snapped at him and walked away. He was left staring until he felt Catherine pat him on the arm.
"She still doesn't want your pity, Grissom."
He still had a lot of Sara to learn, he realised. And somehow, it didn't seem life a lifetime would be enough.
II
"There's a difference between pity and compassion, Sara."
"Sometimes, that's only in a dictionary."
"Sometimes, it's not only. Not with me."
"I know. You can live your life like a textbook, frame your life with definitions."
"Does it bug you?"
"No. But sometimes it will hurt me. Doesn't mean I'll leave."
'Good', he didn't say. 'Because I can't let you go.'
"I know," she said, eyes his face and he knew, finally knew she did love him, did understand him. "You never could."
"No."
II
There were little changes everywhere. Slowly, her colours were starting to creep into his home, like the changes of leaves in a distant autumn of childhood. A blue toothbrush in his bathroom. A yellow-covered book on his coffee table. A black bra in his drawer. A red shoe in his hallway, seeking a mate.
It was becoming a home of two. Nowhere to hide from the storm now, nothing to do but weather the changes.
He cleared out drawers for her, got new toothpaste, removed his baseball books from the coffee table and spent half an hour trying to find her other shoe until she almost stumped over him in the hallway, trying to find the mate of the brown shoe under his bed.
When he pressed her against the wall and kissed her, the shoes were left mismatched together on the floor and somehow, that was right too.
II
Month two: Twenty sleep-overs, seventeen mornings of Sara sick, five shoutings by Ecklie. Five hundred and six moments of panic. He couldn't be a father.
Month three: Twenty-four sleep-overs, twelve mornings of Sara sick, four shoutings by Ecklie. Eighteen nights spent reading while she slept. He could be a father.
Month four: Twenty-seven sleep-overs, no Sara sick, six shoutings by Ecklie. One shouting by him and a silent lab afterwards. Twenty nights spent reading, one to her.
Month five: Running out of books, going for DVDs. Three hundred and twelve moments of panic. Ecklie silent. Sara snoring, the wind howling and he awake in the dark of night, trying to remember the words to a lullaby.
II
Cold bed and cold night, and waking up alone, just like Gil Grissom would normally do, except this time, it was no longer normal.
He found her sitting in the living room, television blaring quietly, her feet tucked in under her, a pillow against her stomach, almost as if she was shielding the life inside her from the noise. Sara the protector. She had never told him the whole story of her childhood, but he knew the protection she should have had, hadn't been. And now she tried to protect the world by catching killers and analyzing fibres, as if to give what she hadn't had.
"I Love Lucy," he said softly, and she nodded without looking up at him.
"My mother liked it," she said after a moment, and he sat down on the couch beside her, watching the light of the television flicker against her hair.
"How did young Sara feel about it?"
"Young Sara hated it," she said with venom.
This time, he just nodded, and after a moment, she leaned slightly against him, her breaths echoing his heartbeat.
"How about we watch something else, then?" he asked, feeling her body slowly warm his, just as his would warm her, nature's little way of making it warmer with two. Survival in two. The essence of life and the proof of it, resting within her skin.
"Discovery channel?" she suggested. "Maybe they have bug hour. One hour of beetles and butterflies, especially crafted to entertain insomniac entomologists."
"Perhaps," he said, smiling faintly. "What do you want to watch?"
"Anything but The Long, Detailed Pain of Childbirth for the 118th time."
"It's educational."
"It's possible to have entirely too much education, Grissom."
"Habit of a lifetime."
"Like watching I Love Lucy for over twenty years in the hopes that it'll make you understand your own mother."
"Yeah," he said softly and kissed her. "Like that."
In the end, they watched Travel Channel and people hunting for ghosts in old ruins, looking in all the wrong places. The ghosts resided in skin, not in stone, within the living, his mother and father within him, her mother and father within Sara. Here be ghosts.
That didn't mean they had to rule.
II
Month six: Seven doctor's appointments, seventy-seven curses building a nursery, a hundred minutes of trying to find the DVDs Sara had hidden
Month seven: Six fights, three his fault, three hers, none of them making her leave. Three hundred suggested baby names and none agreed on.
Month eight: Running out of DVDs.
Month nine: Help.
II
Screams and pushing and her hand in his, clutching him so hard it had to leave marks on his bones, forever proof Sara Sidle had been there, until bones came to dust. One childbirth, and he couldn't remember a single thing from the books or the videos or the checklist he'd made. All he could remember was to hold onto her hand until it felt like he was clutching her.
And a voice, a voice he couldn't even remember the name of, saying something that didn't make sense.
"You have a son."
For a moment of panic, he could only stare at this unfamiliar face, this intrusion in his life. Son.
And the son opened his eyes and it was Sara's eyes and suddenly, English was coming back to him. He had a son. They had a son.
"Oh," he said, because there were no words that could do it justice, even knowing the whole dictionary. "Oh."
II
Wind against the window, tapping, tapping, tapping, a relentless force, awaking him and for a moment, he thought it a child's cry. But the baby was sleeping, Sara was sleeping and the tears were still of the future.
He got up anyway, and knelt by the cradle, watching the baby sleep.
There would be some many things he wouldn't be able to do for this child, this son of his. Not protection, not forever, because that wasn't what life was about. Not enough time, because he would still get lost in work and his own life. Not great words of advice on other people, because that had never been him.
But he could give one thing.
"When you need it," he whispered, the words as much to himself as the child, "I'll sing you lullabies."
He went back to bed, back to her skin next to his, back to the warmth of two. And outside, the wind sang on, a lullaby to the Earth and everyone, carrying the night to day in the safety of its voice and Gil Grissom finally to sleep.