Disclaimer: Still don't own any of C.S.I., still TM product, and still a pity.
Author: hazeleyes57
Title: Last Chance, chapter 13
Rating: R but not for much.
Summary: Married? Whaaat?!
Last Chance Chapter 12 B (13!)
"...are married."
White faced, Sara looked both at her husband and a stranger.
It was a long moment before she found her voice.
"How did you find out?"
Grissom's expression went from frost to shocked disbelief.
"So it's true?!"
Despite the recent revelation, part of Grissom had honestly thought that Sara would deny it was true. He was sure that there had been some sort of misunderstanding.
"Yes."
Grissom found himself made both furiously angry and terribly afraid by that small word.
"What the hell is going on?"
Sara didn't know what else to say. Should she give him the barest bones of the tale or add flesh and substance? Could this lead to his trigger?
She hugged herself, feeling alone in spite of the company.
First things first.
"How did you find out?"
Grissom made an impatient gesture and sighed angrily.
" Mrs. Weston called about the cabin. During the course of the conversation I mentioned that I hadn't been up there for ages, and she said that two months was hardly ages, and especially as it had been so memorable a visit with it practically being a honeymoon and all, she found it easy to remember. I asked her to elaborate. She did. At length."
"Oh... of course."
In an instant, Sara's mind took her back to the second week in the cabin in the mountains.
The first week had been marvellous. Even if she had never seen Gil again it would have been a fantastic memory to carry with her for the rest of her days.
But the second week, jeez, the second week had been special.
"Penny for them."
At the sound of Grissom's voice, Sara turned her head away from the floor length window and the mountain view.
She smiled automatically, unable and quite unwilling to hide her pleasure from him.
"Darn, sorry, but they're worth so much more."
She watched him as he crossed the room towards her. Like her, he wore only a robe, loosely belted, and his hair was mussed.
A light hint of five o'clock shadow was visible at his throat where he hadn't shaved below the beard line yet.
"I'll pay anyway."
Sara gestured at the view out of the window with her coffee mug.
"I was just thinking how huge and solid and permanent this all is. Remembering what you said about how it made all your problems seem smaller."
Grissom stood behind her and slipped his hands around her waist. He rested his chin on Sara's shoulder and contemplated the view outside.
"Did you know that a couple of studies have shown that stressed smokers at work have a slightly lower blood pressure than stressed non smokers at work?"
Sara turned in surprise at Grissom's apparent non-sequiter.
"What?"
"It's not the cigarettes themselves; the health risks are well documented. It's because smokers leave the office or workplace and usually nowadays have to go outside to have a smoke. They have ten minutes away from the stressful situation that they are in."
"So you are saying that this is your de-stressor?"
"One of them."
They stood in silent contemplation for a moment, then Grissom stirred.
"So do you have a problem? When I first woke up alone I thought for one terrible moment that it had all been a dream."
Sara patted his arm around her waist reassuringly.
"No, no dream."
She looked in her coffee mug, then out of the window, deliberately avoiding Grissom's gaze.
"I couldn't sleep. I didn't want to disturb you."
Grissom waited, then prompted her when she appeared not to want to continue.
"And?"
Sara was silent for a long moment, but Grissom allowed her to choose her words without further prompting. She sighed.
"I just couldn't stop thinking about where we go from here. It sounds really selfish when I think about wanting to know more. I mean, we know that we're in love, which is fantastic, believe me. But y'know, that's where the movie rolls the credits and everyone goes home. Where do we go from here?"
Grissom squeezed her gently.
"But that is fiction and this is reality. Contrary to my belief, the sky didn't fall in on me after I told you that I love you, so we go on. To the future. Together. Like anyone else we'll tackle our problems when they arise. Let's not borrow trouble."
" I'm not. I just like to be prepared. I don't like not having the answers."
"Neither do I, but that's what makes us good at our jobs. You have to trust in the future."
Sara smiled at Grissom's earnest expression.
"Y'know, for a guy who 'didn't know what to do about this' you're not doing so bad."
"You make me try harder."
Sara laughed outright. She turned in Grissom's arms and kissed him briefly before putting her empty coffee mug down on the table.
"Ignore me when I get idiot's disease. I still over-talk. I don't know why I'm worrying. I don't even know yet which of my two options I'm going to be given yet."
Sara saw the comprehension dawn in Grissom's eyes.
"Baby or no baby?"
Sara nodded in confirmation.
Grissom looked into her eyes as he hugged her gently. She hadn't been the only one thinking deeply of late. He smiled.
" How about a third option?"
Sara looked a little baffled, but intrigued as well.
"A third option?"
Grissom grinned and it took years off him. Sara privately vowed to ensure that he did it more often.
"Marry me."
Sara's mouth fell open in shock.
She was sure that her face was a picture.
So many things were going through her mind all at once.
"What?"
Grissom smiled his pursed-lipped smirk that he had when he was trying not to grin.
"You heard. Marry me. Here. Now. This week."
Sara looked into his warmly amused blue eyes, searching for answers.
"You're teasing me, this is a joke, isn't it?"
Grissom shook his head.
"No. Would I joke about marriage?"
"No, I guess not. I don't know what to say. It's such a surprise...nice one, though."
Sara smirked, elation beginning to build now that the shock was wearing off.
Grissom raised his eyebrows.
"So...?"
Sara mimicked him with a megawatt grin.
"So...?"
"Don't make me drag it out of you Sidle. Yes or no. Marry me. It makes sense. I'm single, you're single, we get on in bed and out of it, and we're going to have a baby."
"A-ah, you don't know that yet!"
Grissom shrugged.
"Call it a hunch."
Sara poked him in the chest.
"...and that wasn't a very romantic list there, mister. It 'makes sense'?"
"And you still haven't given me an answer. C'mon, marry me, make an old man happy."
Sara tried to look stern but failed miserably and her grin widened.
"Why should I?"
Grissom's smile faded and he looked serious.
"Because the follies a man regrets most in his life are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity. You're not a folly, but I won't let this opportunity pass by. Because I love you. I probably won't tell you it often enough. I'll be hard to live with because I've not lived with anyone for a long time. I like my kind of order, which won't always be what fits in with you. But with you I want to take the chance to discover that I have found the missing part of me."
Sara's smile softened as Grissom spoke, and by the time he had finished speaking her eyes held a soft sheen of tears. She felt moved by the honest confession and even more sure of her decision.
She hugged him as he hugged her, and as her lips brushed his ear she whispered.
"Yes. I'll marry you. Because I know that you are the missing part of me."
Once the idea had taken root, there was no holding Grissom back. As he pointed out to Sara, he didn't want to take the chance on her coming to her senses and realising what she was about to do.
Grissom suggested that the marriage take place on the outcrop of rock where they had made love in the rain. The local Justice of the Peace could perform the simple ceremony, with Mrs Weston and her daughter Monica as the two witnesses.
At Sara's request Grissom was resplendent in a dark silver grey suit, black shirt and silver tie.
With Mrs Weston's very excited and helpful connivance, Sara had managed to get hold of a simple full-length strapless white sheath dress. It had a gossamer thin net overcoat with it that floated about Sara in the gentle breeze making her look ethereally beautiful and Grissom told her later that he thought that he'd never seen her look lovelier.
After the legal part of the ceremony had been completed, the Justice turned to Grissom with a smile.
"...and now, I believe that your wife has something that she'd like to say."
Sara was still holding Grissom's hand; the unfamiliar weight of their wedding bands a new experience.
She turned to face her husband, and took hold of his other hand too. No longer nervous, she looked into Grissom's eyes for a long beat, then smiled.
"From this day forward you shall not walk alone. My heart shall be your shelter and my arms will be your home."
As Grissom kissed his bride, Mrs Weston wasn't the only one in tears.
"Sara!"
Grissom's gruff tone brought Sara back to the present with a bang. She looked into those same eyes, but didn't see the man she married.
As so often of late she was experiencing two extremes of emotion.
Relief that Grissom finally knew that they were married and she no longer had to guard every moment against telling him, but dismay that his reaction demonstrated that he had clearly not recovered his memory.
"I'm waiting."
Sara remembered to breathe again when she began to feel light-headed. She folded her arms in a defensive gesture, but then put one hand to her trembling lips. Her fingers were icy.
She felt like weeping but despised the way it made her feel weak and vulnerable. The small burst of fury that it gave her strengthened her backbone and she straightened up to her full height.
"Tough. I'm waiting too. I've been waiting for weeks. You're not the only one suffering here."
Sara turned her back on the astonished Grissom and filled the kettle, mainly for something to do with her hands.
"What?!"
Grissom sounded as surprised as he looked. Sara had not reacted as he had expected her to, and he felt defensive. He felt that he was the one that was owed an explanation.
"Dammit Sara, you can't just tell me that it's 'tough'. What the hell is going on? You've been lying to me all this time! Dammit woman, leave what you're doing and turn round."
She turned back to face Grissom.
He didn't look quite so furious now, but it pained Sara to see that underneath the still angry expression there was also a curiously hurt look about him.
Almost as if he felt that she had gone off and married someone else.
"I haven't lied to you Grissom. Well, okay, except when I told you that I wasn't hiding anything else. But at least try to look at it from my side. I had been told that I couldn't tell you anything about the missing three months."
Sara raised one hand when it looked like Grissom was readying himself to interrupt her.
"I know, I know. You don't care what they think. Well, I do care and they told me that you must not be forced into remembering whatever it was that had so traumatised you that you wanted to forget it. Even if it was important. Especially if it were important."
Sara looked up at Grissom, her eyes full.
"And part of me was terrified that the thing that had so traumatised you had been our marriage...Do you have any idea how difficult this has been for me?"
Grissom's anger still simmered along underneath, but it was now tempered with other emotions. Part of him felt deceived and betrayed. As if Sara had been unfaithful. Even if it had been with his 'other' self.
Part of him was simply stunned.
They were married. Married. Him and Sara. Husband and wife.
Unbelievable.
How the hell could he have possibly forgotten that?
How had he come to be married? What had prompted the proposal?
The 'why' was suddenly obvious; Sara was pregnant.
Had it been just a practical solution? A 'might as well' rationale? Or had there been more to it?
Grissom looked at her, trying to see the truth of it all in her face. She looked back at him, distressed and yet oddly hopeful.
Sara wished that Grissom would say something, anything but this odd silence.
Grissom - for once - didn't know where to start.
Which question to ask first?
Fortune favours the bold.
"Did we...?"
Grissom waved his hand vaguely between the two of them across the work surface.
Despite the situation, Sara almost smirked but managed to stop herself. Clearly Grissom was not comfortable with this conversation.
Such as it was.
She summoned up her best innocent look.
"Did we...you know...?"
Grissom nodded once, his face pale.
"Oh, yeah! "
Sara managed to convey a whole wealth of meaning within her fervent drawl.
Unfortunately the look on her erstwhile husband's face wiped out any humour in the situation.
Grissom was devastated.
He'd actually had sex with Sara.
No, he wouldn't have just had sex - he would have made love to her. He would have told her with his body what he couldn't with his voice.
But either way he had no memory of it.
Grissom felt like beating his head on the work surface. How could the fates be so cruel?
Sara was in such a heightened state of stress that she picked up his devastation but misinterpreted it completely.
She assumed that his distress was because he had finally realised that they really were married.
The sound of the kettle boiling intruded into the tense atmosphere and Sara - grateful for the interruption - turned around to make herself a fruit tea.
Grissom looked at her back. How could she be so calm?
The last hour had changed Grissom's world upside down and inside out. He no longer knew for certain what was real and what was not. Why the hell had he forgotten the single most important thing that had ever happened to him? Even more oddly, why hadn't he - trained to notice - picked up any clue about their marriage? There must have been something that he would have noticed.
The wedding band. Sara must have one. Had he got one?
Grissom suddenly remembered Sara standing awkwardly in his hospital room, her hands in her pockets while they struggled to find something to say to each other.
Her hands were in her pockets.
Like a witness, he heard his own voice in his head.
'This is open. Didn't they seal it?'
Sara must have opened the personal effects envelope to remove his ring. She had obviously still been wearing hers in the hospital.
Sara watched the emotions play over Grissom's face as he sorted through his available pieces of memory. If she knew him at all, he'd be sorting through his thoughts for the clues that he had missed.
Grissom started, making Sara jump a little in surprise.
"That explains why the hospital allowed you in on the results from my exam."
Sara nodded.
"Yeah. As your wife they assumed that you'd want me there."
Grissom looked at Sara again.
His wife.
His greatest wish.
His biggest fear.
Where did they go from here?
Almost as if she had heard Grissom's thoughts, Sara picked up her watch and nearly swore.
"Shoot, I'm gonna be late for work."
Grissom looked nonplussed. They had unfinished business, he wasn't leaving yet.
"Work?"
Sara looked back at him as she headed for her bedroom, loosening the sash on her robe as she went.
"Yeah, y'know Gris, your home from home."
Grissom caught a glimpse of silky leg as Sara paused in the doorway and leaned back into the main room.
"You gonna be here when I come out?"
Grissom looked at her like someone who had wandered on stage during a play, having been given the wrong lines to learn.
He didn't know what to say except that he needed to know what had happened.
"Sara, just tell me one thing."
Sara paused, and Grissom couldn't tell what she was thinking.
"If it's appropriate. Shoot."
Grissom looked discomforted. It was not a look that Sara had seen on him very often.
"Was it a marriage of convenience?"
Sara looked at him for a long moment, hurt, but trying to keep her expression neutral. As if she would do such a thing to him.
She wondered if that was what Grissom needed to believe had happened. A soulless marriage of convenience, just for the sake of a potential baby.
An empty marriage of convenience, one in which he appeared to not have remembered that he had asked if they had slept together.
"I can't answer that."
Grissom's reply shot out.
"Can't? Or won't?"
"Alright, I won't answer it. You either remember or you figure it out. Either way I'm not going to force your hand."
'Though God knows I want to.' She added mentally.
When Grissom appeared to have no immediate reply, Sara went into her bedroom and left the door open while she dressed.
Whether or not the move was deliberately orchestrated, Grissom found that he could see Sara's shadow on the wall as she dressed. He also found himself unable to look away as the reverse striptease progressed.
Part of him was horrified at his voyeuristic enjoyment of the shadow dance, but part of him already justifying his behaviour - she was his wife, after all.
As Grissom stood, mesmerised, he unconsciously moistened his dry lips with his tongue tip.
The remote part of his brain that wasn't hardwired to the primitive male was telling him that Sara would be out in a moment and could discover the reaction that she was creating in him.
Unfortunately, caveman was in charge and Grissom had stopped thinking.
That is, he had stopped thinking with the rational part of his brain.
What he couldn't see with his eyes his imagination filled in. He had thought of her often and that - coupled with the knowledge that they had already been together - made him rock hard in moments.
He wanted her.
He had always wanted her.
A traitorous little voice in his head was whispering ' she's yours now, you can have her'.
Grissom took a step forward.
He took another.
Sara switched off her bedside light once she was dressed and turned to leave the room.
Only to be brought up in surprise by the sight of Grissom in the doorway.
"Grissom?"
It didn't take Sara a moment to realise why he was there. The 'why' was very apparent. The 'who' was instantly what concerned her. Her husband or her Supervisor?
Did she care about the distinction? They were both the same man. But she felt as if being with Grissom would be being unfaithful to Gill.
But she wanted him.
She had always wanted him.
Grissom didn't speak but stepped further into the darkened room.
Sara was torn. Her arousal had leapt in response to his, but this was so wrong for so many reasons.
Not least of all was the fact that they were both due at work in less than half an hour.
But Jeez, she had missed being with him.
Her brain may have been listing reasons, but her feet were moving forward.
"Gris, wait!"
Sara stopped short of reaching him, her hand up to halt him, but he stepped straight into her personal space, pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
Sara fell into the maelstrom of emotions and physical reactions. Dear Lord it was heaven. And Hell. For an instant she responded; she couldn't help clutching him to her and her mouth opened under his insistent tongue.
Grissom took instant advantage of his opportunity, plundering Sara's mouth, his fire readily met by hers.
Sara squirmed against the welcome solidity of his arousal.
There was no past and no future. There was only this glorious now.
Grissom couldn't get close enough to Sara. He turned them both and backed her up against the wall, pressing himself against her. Somehow her hands were in the way, so he took hold of them both in one of his hands and held her wrists pinned together above her head.
The position had the added advantage of making Sara's breasts push out and he briefly savoured the view as he nudged her legs apart with one knee.
Grissom leaned in and nuzzled Sara's neck, breathing in the fresh clean scent of her.
"Please Grissom..."
Sara's voice pleaded with him and he ran his free hand from her left hip up past her waist and finally, God finally closed on her left breast, where he applied gentle pressure, his fingers seeking and finding the already hard nub through her shirt.
Sara flinched in momentary pain, her breasts more tender than they had been a month ago. But even though she wasn't entirely comfortable, she still didn't want him to stop. The exquisite joy that sang through her with each of his kisses made her feel so good that her eyes brimmed with tears of happiness.
Grissom was barely aware of the two of them as separate people. The fire that ran along his veins consumed him and made him want more. She was so...so...Christ, just everything that he'd ever imagined. He moved up her throat to kiss her lips.
And tasted salt.
Salt? Tears?
He stopped dead, his eyes wide with burgeoning horror.
Sara hadn't been pleading with him to go on, she had been pleading with him to stop.
Grissom abruptly let go of Sara, his face tight with self-loathing. He pushed off against the wall and looked at her.
He was disgusted with his behaviour.
What must she be thinking of him?
"Sara...I...no, we can't."
She had seen his disgust. God, he must think that she was mad.
Part of her had desperately gambled that this encounter would have helped restore his memory, but half of her hadn't had any thought other than to be with him again. She shouldn't have rushed him.
"No, it's my fault. It's me."
Grissom shook his head as he backed away from her.
"No. This won't happen again. I'll make sure of it."
Sara started to cry in earnest as he turned and headed for the door.
"No! Don't go! Not like this. Please Gil, not like this!"
Grissom's step faltered, but then he carried on.
The slam of the apartment door seemed to echo in Sara's head for an age.
Then the only sound that could be heard was that of sobbing.
. . . . . . . . . . x x x x x x x x x
From that day Grissom was as good as his word. Or as bad, depending on your point of view. He rarely partnered Sara on cases, and usually only when one of the others was present, or it was unavoidable.
For Sara it was a retreat to the bad old days of mistrust and enmity, and the atmosphere at work was terrible. Everyone on the nightshift was walking on eggshells around both of them without any idea why. The two main protagonists were close mouthed about the whole thing. Ask either of them, and the answer was always,
'I'm fine'.
Speculation on dayshift was rife that they had been having an affair and that it had gone wrong. After two weeks without any sign of a thaw in proceedings, Catherine went to see Grissom in his office.
Playing heavily on both her friendship with Gil and her association with him at work, Catherine at first tried to discuss 'the problem' but was firmly rebuffed. She then insisted that Grissom find the plug and pull it.
She pointed out at length that the department as a whole was suffering when two supposedly grown up people started acting like spoilt brats.
Grissom had leaned back in his chair and dropped his pen on his desk.
Catherine was right to be concerned and point out his lack of judgement; he was behaving like an idiot. Though obviously he wasn't going to tell her that.
Just because he was appalled with his own behaviour was no reason to give her the satisfaction of agreeing with his own assessment. He assured Catherine that he would 'deal' with the matter.
Grissom sighed heavily as he seated himself at his desk. He had just finished handing out the assignments to everyone in the breakroom. Sara had been a little subdued, but had brightened a little when she and Warrick had been given a DB found in suspicious circumstances.
He noticed that Sara was beginning to look a little more well rounded than usual and wondered if anyone else had noticed. She was a little over twelve weeks now, and still - as far as he knew - had not told anyone about the pregnancy. He wondered how she was feeling.
It hurt every day to be so close to Sara when she clearly didn't want anything to do with him.
Since the encounter in her apartment he had been experiencing more dreams of a profoundly erotic nature, but no more memories.
Sometimes at work he felt ashamed of his thoughts in Sara's company. It made him sharp when he had no intention of being so.
Sara was not consciously avoiding Grissom, but she tried to minimise her contact with him, just to try to help him get over his disgust at her behaviour. Each time she thought that it was about time that they sit down and discuss the situation away from work, something would always crop up or he would cut her dead without even trying.
It was soul destroying and wearing her down gradually.
The only good thing was that she was blooming in the pregnancy without an iota of any of the classic side effects. No nausea, no cramps, no swollen ankles, no cravings, no faintness, nothing. Zip.
If she didn't know better, she wouldn't have thought she was pregnant.
Except, of course, none of her pants fit anymore, but that was to be expected.
It went with the territory.
Various glasses of fresh orange juice clacked together above the centre of the table and Catherine's voice rose above the hubbub in the diner.
"We rock!"
The rest of the nightshift chorused the toast, and Grissom allowed a smile to escape.
They had cracked a big case last night and now they were all celebrating over breakfast.
Grissom took the opportunity to steal a glimpse of Sara when some of the food order turned up at the table. She looked well, if a little down. She was hiding it better than he thought he was.
It hadn't helped him to realise yesterday that he was going down with one of those unpleasant twenty-four hour flu-like illnesses.
He hated being ill.
He refused to even admit it to himself, let alone Catherine, that he was feeling below par.
To add insult to injury, someone had changed the coffee that was used in the break room. The new stuff tasted foul and he could barely drink it.
Catherine looked around the table with discrete satisfaction. Since her 'chat' with Grissom the other day, things seemed to be mostly back on an even keel.
She noticed that Grissom wasn't eating. It was difficult to tell in the fluorescent strip lighting, but he looked quite pale.
As she wasn't sitting next to him, she leaned over towards him.
"You okay?"
Grissom nodded once.
"It's nothing."
Which proved to Catherine that there was an 'it'.
Hmmm. Interesting.
She filed it away.
Two days later Catherine was listening to Doc. Robbins as he gave her the salient points about their victim on the table.
"...and you can see here in the back the two single stab wounds, one to the left, one right lung. Cause of death was suffocation due to simultaneous pneumothorax. Both lungs collapsed at the same time. What's up with Gil?"
Catherine had been intent on examining the wound sites and took a moment to realise what the pathologist had tagged on the end.
"Excuse me?"
" 'Gruesome Grissom' the man who doesn't bat an eye at anything has had to leave two posts looking very green about the gills - no pun intended."
Catherine eyed the older man speculatively.
"Mmm, yeah. Stomach flu, hit him pretty hard. He'll be fine."
Robbins just shrugged and finished up the notes on his post. He didn't look convinced.
Catherine left the room and changed back out into her regular clothes. She went to find Grissom.
She was on the way to his office when she bumped into him - almost literally - coming out of the men's room.
"Hey, just looking for you."
Catherine looked Grissom over. He looked worse than some of their vic's.
He was as white as a sheet and looked a little unsteady on his feet.
"Well, you've found me."
The pair of them entered Grissom's office and took their usual seats.
"You look like crap, you should be at home."
"Really Doctor Willows?"
Grissom opened his eyes and looked at her blearily. He rummaged around in a pocket for a moment and came up with a couple of individually wrapped dry crackers. He opened the pocket, or at least tried to.
Catherine tutted in amusement to hide her concern, took the packet and opened it. She handed it back to him. He munched slowly on one of the crackers.
"It comes and goes, I'll be okay in a minute. These seem to help."
Catherine looked at him for several long moments, then held up a hand and counted off her fingers.
"You look pale, you're tired, you've ducked out of a couple of posts through nausea and you've got it now too, you're light-headed, you're off your food, and you have frequency."
She grinned at the prostrate Grissom.
"Y'know Gil, if I didn't know that it was impossible, I'd think that you were pregnant."
.
.TBC
Author: hazeleyes57
Title: Last Chance, chapter 13
Rating: R but not for much.
Summary: Married? Whaaat?!
Last Chance Chapter 12 B (13!)
"...are married."
White faced, Sara looked both at her husband and a stranger.
It was a long moment before she found her voice.
"How did you find out?"
Grissom's expression went from frost to shocked disbelief.
"So it's true?!"
Despite the recent revelation, part of Grissom had honestly thought that Sara would deny it was true. He was sure that there had been some sort of misunderstanding.
"Yes."
Grissom found himself made both furiously angry and terribly afraid by that small word.
"What the hell is going on?"
Sara didn't know what else to say. Should she give him the barest bones of the tale or add flesh and substance? Could this lead to his trigger?
She hugged herself, feeling alone in spite of the company.
First things first.
"How did you find out?"
Grissom made an impatient gesture and sighed angrily.
" Mrs. Weston called about the cabin. During the course of the conversation I mentioned that I hadn't been up there for ages, and she said that two months was hardly ages, and especially as it had been so memorable a visit with it practically being a honeymoon and all, she found it easy to remember. I asked her to elaborate. She did. At length."
"Oh... of course."
In an instant, Sara's mind took her back to the second week in the cabin in the mountains.
The first week had been marvellous. Even if she had never seen Gil again it would have been a fantastic memory to carry with her for the rest of her days.
But the second week, jeez, the second week had been special.
"Penny for them."
At the sound of Grissom's voice, Sara turned her head away from the floor length window and the mountain view.
She smiled automatically, unable and quite unwilling to hide her pleasure from him.
"Darn, sorry, but they're worth so much more."
She watched him as he crossed the room towards her. Like her, he wore only a robe, loosely belted, and his hair was mussed.
A light hint of five o'clock shadow was visible at his throat where he hadn't shaved below the beard line yet.
"I'll pay anyway."
Sara gestured at the view out of the window with her coffee mug.
"I was just thinking how huge and solid and permanent this all is. Remembering what you said about how it made all your problems seem smaller."
Grissom stood behind her and slipped his hands around her waist. He rested his chin on Sara's shoulder and contemplated the view outside.
"Did you know that a couple of studies have shown that stressed smokers at work have a slightly lower blood pressure than stressed non smokers at work?"
Sara turned in surprise at Grissom's apparent non-sequiter.
"What?"
"It's not the cigarettes themselves; the health risks are well documented. It's because smokers leave the office or workplace and usually nowadays have to go outside to have a smoke. They have ten minutes away from the stressful situation that they are in."
"So you are saying that this is your de-stressor?"
"One of them."
They stood in silent contemplation for a moment, then Grissom stirred.
"So do you have a problem? When I first woke up alone I thought for one terrible moment that it had all been a dream."
Sara patted his arm around her waist reassuringly.
"No, no dream."
She looked in her coffee mug, then out of the window, deliberately avoiding Grissom's gaze.
"I couldn't sleep. I didn't want to disturb you."
Grissom waited, then prompted her when she appeared not to want to continue.
"And?"
Sara was silent for a long moment, but Grissom allowed her to choose her words without further prompting. She sighed.
"I just couldn't stop thinking about where we go from here. It sounds really selfish when I think about wanting to know more. I mean, we know that we're in love, which is fantastic, believe me. But y'know, that's where the movie rolls the credits and everyone goes home. Where do we go from here?"
Grissom squeezed her gently.
"But that is fiction and this is reality. Contrary to my belief, the sky didn't fall in on me after I told you that I love you, so we go on. To the future. Together. Like anyone else we'll tackle our problems when they arise. Let's not borrow trouble."
" I'm not. I just like to be prepared. I don't like not having the answers."
"Neither do I, but that's what makes us good at our jobs. You have to trust in the future."
Sara smiled at Grissom's earnest expression.
"Y'know, for a guy who 'didn't know what to do about this' you're not doing so bad."
"You make me try harder."
Sara laughed outright. She turned in Grissom's arms and kissed him briefly before putting her empty coffee mug down on the table.
"Ignore me when I get idiot's disease. I still over-talk. I don't know why I'm worrying. I don't even know yet which of my two options I'm going to be given yet."
Sara saw the comprehension dawn in Grissom's eyes.
"Baby or no baby?"
Sara nodded in confirmation.
Grissom looked into her eyes as he hugged her gently. She hadn't been the only one thinking deeply of late. He smiled.
" How about a third option?"
Sara looked a little baffled, but intrigued as well.
"A third option?"
Grissom grinned and it took years off him. Sara privately vowed to ensure that he did it more often.
"Marry me."
Sara's mouth fell open in shock.
She was sure that her face was a picture.
So many things were going through her mind all at once.
"What?"
Grissom smiled his pursed-lipped smirk that he had when he was trying not to grin.
"You heard. Marry me. Here. Now. This week."
Sara looked into his warmly amused blue eyes, searching for answers.
"You're teasing me, this is a joke, isn't it?"
Grissom shook his head.
"No. Would I joke about marriage?"
"No, I guess not. I don't know what to say. It's such a surprise...nice one, though."
Sara smirked, elation beginning to build now that the shock was wearing off.
Grissom raised his eyebrows.
"So...?"
Sara mimicked him with a megawatt grin.
"So...?"
"Don't make me drag it out of you Sidle. Yes or no. Marry me. It makes sense. I'm single, you're single, we get on in bed and out of it, and we're going to have a baby."
"A-ah, you don't know that yet!"
Grissom shrugged.
"Call it a hunch."
Sara poked him in the chest.
"...and that wasn't a very romantic list there, mister. It 'makes sense'?"
"And you still haven't given me an answer. C'mon, marry me, make an old man happy."
Sara tried to look stern but failed miserably and her grin widened.
"Why should I?"
Grissom's smile faded and he looked serious.
"Because the follies a man regrets most in his life are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity. You're not a folly, but I won't let this opportunity pass by. Because I love you. I probably won't tell you it often enough. I'll be hard to live with because I've not lived with anyone for a long time. I like my kind of order, which won't always be what fits in with you. But with you I want to take the chance to discover that I have found the missing part of me."
Sara's smile softened as Grissom spoke, and by the time he had finished speaking her eyes held a soft sheen of tears. She felt moved by the honest confession and even more sure of her decision.
She hugged him as he hugged her, and as her lips brushed his ear she whispered.
"Yes. I'll marry you. Because I know that you are the missing part of me."
Once the idea had taken root, there was no holding Grissom back. As he pointed out to Sara, he didn't want to take the chance on her coming to her senses and realising what she was about to do.
Grissom suggested that the marriage take place on the outcrop of rock where they had made love in the rain. The local Justice of the Peace could perform the simple ceremony, with Mrs Weston and her daughter Monica as the two witnesses.
At Sara's request Grissom was resplendent in a dark silver grey suit, black shirt and silver tie.
With Mrs Weston's very excited and helpful connivance, Sara had managed to get hold of a simple full-length strapless white sheath dress. It had a gossamer thin net overcoat with it that floated about Sara in the gentle breeze making her look ethereally beautiful and Grissom told her later that he thought that he'd never seen her look lovelier.
After the legal part of the ceremony had been completed, the Justice turned to Grissom with a smile.
"...and now, I believe that your wife has something that she'd like to say."
Sara was still holding Grissom's hand; the unfamiliar weight of their wedding bands a new experience.
She turned to face her husband, and took hold of his other hand too. No longer nervous, she looked into Grissom's eyes for a long beat, then smiled.
"From this day forward you shall not walk alone. My heart shall be your shelter and my arms will be your home."
As Grissom kissed his bride, Mrs Weston wasn't the only one in tears.
"Sara!"
Grissom's gruff tone brought Sara back to the present with a bang. She looked into those same eyes, but didn't see the man she married.
As so often of late she was experiencing two extremes of emotion.
Relief that Grissom finally knew that they were married and she no longer had to guard every moment against telling him, but dismay that his reaction demonstrated that he had clearly not recovered his memory.
"I'm waiting."
Sara remembered to breathe again when she began to feel light-headed. She folded her arms in a defensive gesture, but then put one hand to her trembling lips. Her fingers were icy.
She felt like weeping but despised the way it made her feel weak and vulnerable. The small burst of fury that it gave her strengthened her backbone and she straightened up to her full height.
"Tough. I'm waiting too. I've been waiting for weeks. You're not the only one suffering here."
Sara turned her back on the astonished Grissom and filled the kettle, mainly for something to do with her hands.
"What?!"
Grissom sounded as surprised as he looked. Sara had not reacted as he had expected her to, and he felt defensive. He felt that he was the one that was owed an explanation.
"Dammit Sara, you can't just tell me that it's 'tough'. What the hell is going on? You've been lying to me all this time! Dammit woman, leave what you're doing and turn round."
She turned back to face Grissom.
He didn't look quite so furious now, but it pained Sara to see that underneath the still angry expression there was also a curiously hurt look about him.
Almost as if he felt that she had gone off and married someone else.
"I haven't lied to you Grissom. Well, okay, except when I told you that I wasn't hiding anything else. But at least try to look at it from my side. I had been told that I couldn't tell you anything about the missing three months."
Sara raised one hand when it looked like Grissom was readying himself to interrupt her.
"I know, I know. You don't care what they think. Well, I do care and they told me that you must not be forced into remembering whatever it was that had so traumatised you that you wanted to forget it. Even if it was important. Especially if it were important."
Sara looked up at Grissom, her eyes full.
"And part of me was terrified that the thing that had so traumatised you had been our marriage...Do you have any idea how difficult this has been for me?"
Grissom's anger still simmered along underneath, but it was now tempered with other emotions. Part of him felt deceived and betrayed. As if Sara had been unfaithful. Even if it had been with his 'other' self.
Part of him was simply stunned.
They were married. Married. Him and Sara. Husband and wife.
Unbelievable.
How the hell could he have possibly forgotten that?
How had he come to be married? What had prompted the proposal?
The 'why' was suddenly obvious; Sara was pregnant.
Had it been just a practical solution? A 'might as well' rationale? Or had there been more to it?
Grissom looked at her, trying to see the truth of it all in her face. She looked back at him, distressed and yet oddly hopeful.
Sara wished that Grissom would say something, anything but this odd silence.
Grissom - for once - didn't know where to start.
Which question to ask first?
Fortune favours the bold.
"Did we...?"
Grissom waved his hand vaguely between the two of them across the work surface.
Despite the situation, Sara almost smirked but managed to stop herself. Clearly Grissom was not comfortable with this conversation.
Such as it was.
She summoned up her best innocent look.
"Did we...you know...?"
Grissom nodded once, his face pale.
"Oh, yeah! "
Sara managed to convey a whole wealth of meaning within her fervent drawl.
Unfortunately the look on her erstwhile husband's face wiped out any humour in the situation.
Grissom was devastated.
He'd actually had sex with Sara.
No, he wouldn't have just had sex - he would have made love to her. He would have told her with his body what he couldn't with his voice.
But either way he had no memory of it.
Grissom felt like beating his head on the work surface. How could the fates be so cruel?
Sara was in such a heightened state of stress that she picked up his devastation but misinterpreted it completely.
She assumed that his distress was because he had finally realised that they really were married.
The sound of the kettle boiling intruded into the tense atmosphere and Sara - grateful for the interruption - turned around to make herself a fruit tea.
Grissom looked at her back. How could she be so calm?
The last hour had changed Grissom's world upside down and inside out. He no longer knew for certain what was real and what was not. Why the hell had he forgotten the single most important thing that had ever happened to him? Even more oddly, why hadn't he - trained to notice - picked up any clue about their marriage? There must have been something that he would have noticed.
The wedding band. Sara must have one. Had he got one?
Grissom suddenly remembered Sara standing awkwardly in his hospital room, her hands in her pockets while they struggled to find something to say to each other.
Her hands were in her pockets.
Like a witness, he heard his own voice in his head.
'This is open. Didn't they seal it?'
Sara must have opened the personal effects envelope to remove his ring. She had obviously still been wearing hers in the hospital.
Sara watched the emotions play over Grissom's face as he sorted through his available pieces of memory. If she knew him at all, he'd be sorting through his thoughts for the clues that he had missed.
Grissom started, making Sara jump a little in surprise.
"That explains why the hospital allowed you in on the results from my exam."
Sara nodded.
"Yeah. As your wife they assumed that you'd want me there."
Grissom looked at Sara again.
His wife.
His greatest wish.
His biggest fear.
Where did they go from here?
Almost as if she had heard Grissom's thoughts, Sara picked up her watch and nearly swore.
"Shoot, I'm gonna be late for work."
Grissom looked nonplussed. They had unfinished business, he wasn't leaving yet.
"Work?"
Sara looked back at him as she headed for her bedroom, loosening the sash on her robe as she went.
"Yeah, y'know Gris, your home from home."
Grissom caught a glimpse of silky leg as Sara paused in the doorway and leaned back into the main room.
"You gonna be here when I come out?"
Grissom looked at her like someone who had wandered on stage during a play, having been given the wrong lines to learn.
He didn't know what to say except that he needed to know what had happened.
"Sara, just tell me one thing."
Sara paused, and Grissom couldn't tell what she was thinking.
"If it's appropriate. Shoot."
Grissom looked discomforted. It was not a look that Sara had seen on him very often.
"Was it a marriage of convenience?"
Sara looked at him for a long moment, hurt, but trying to keep her expression neutral. As if she would do such a thing to him.
She wondered if that was what Grissom needed to believe had happened. A soulless marriage of convenience, just for the sake of a potential baby.
An empty marriage of convenience, one in which he appeared to not have remembered that he had asked if they had slept together.
"I can't answer that."
Grissom's reply shot out.
"Can't? Or won't?"
"Alright, I won't answer it. You either remember or you figure it out. Either way I'm not going to force your hand."
'Though God knows I want to.' She added mentally.
When Grissom appeared to have no immediate reply, Sara went into her bedroom and left the door open while she dressed.
Whether or not the move was deliberately orchestrated, Grissom found that he could see Sara's shadow on the wall as she dressed. He also found himself unable to look away as the reverse striptease progressed.
Part of him was horrified at his voyeuristic enjoyment of the shadow dance, but part of him already justifying his behaviour - she was his wife, after all.
As Grissom stood, mesmerised, he unconsciously moistened his dry lips with his tongue tip.
The remote part of his brain that wasn't hardwired to the primitive male was telling him that Sara would be out in a moment and could discover the reaction that she was creating in him.
Unfortunately, caveman was in charge and Grissom had stopped thinking.
That is, he had stopped thinking with the rational part of his brain.
What he couldn't see with his eyes his imagination filled in. He had thought of her often and that - coupled with the knowledge that they had already been together - made him rock hard in moments.
He wanted her.
He had always wanted her.
A traitorous little voice in his head was whispering ' she's yours now, you can have her'.
Grissom took a step forward.
He took another.
Sara switched off her bedside light once she was dressed and turned to leave the room.
Only to be brought up in surprise by the sight of Grissom in the doorway.
"Grissom?"
It didn't take Sara a moment to realise why he was there. The 'why' was very apparent. The 'who' was instantly what concerned her. Her husband or her Supervisor?
Did she care about the distinction? They were both the same man. But she felt as if being with Grissom would be being unfaithful to Gill.
But she wanted him.
She had always wanted him.
Grissom didn't speak but stepped further into the darkened room.
Sara was torn. Her arousal had leapt in response to his, but this was so wrong for so many reasons.
Not least of all was the fact that they were both due at work in less than half an hour.
But Jeez, she had missed being with him.
Her brain may have been listing reasons, but her feet were moving forward.
"Gris, wait!"
Sara stopped short of reaching him, her hand up to halt him, but he stepped straight into her personal space, pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
Sara fell into the maelstrom of emotions and physical reactions. Dear Lord it was heaven. And Hell. For an instant she responded; she couldn't help clutching him to her and her mouth opened under his insistent tongue.
Grissom took instant advantage of his opportunity, plundering Sara's mouth, his fire readily met by hers.
Sara squirmed against the welcome solidity of his arousal.
There was no past and no future. There was only this glorious now.
Grissom couldn't get close enough to Sara. He turned them both and backed her up against the wall, pressing himself against her. Somehow her hands were in the way, so he took hold of them both in one of his hands and held her wrists pinned together above her head.
The position had the added advantage of making Sara's breasts push out and he briefly savoured the view as he nudged her legs apart with one knee.
Grissom leaned in and nuzzled Sara's neck, breathing in the fresh clean scent of her.
"Please Grissom..."
Sara's voice pleaded with him and he ran his free hand from her left hip up past her waist and finally, God finally closed on her left breast, where he applied gentle pressure, his fingers seeking and finding the already hard nub through her shirt.
Sara flinched in momentary pain, her breasts more tender than they had been a month ago. But even though she wasn't entirely comfortable, she still didn't want him to stop. The exquisite joy that sang through her with each of his kisses made her feel so good that her eyes brimmed with tears of happiness.
Grissom was barely aware of the two of them as separate people. The fire that ran along his veins consumed him and made him want more. She was so...so...Christ, just everything that he'd ever imagined. He moved up her throat to kiss her lips.
And tasted salt.
Salt? Tears?
He stopped dead, his eyes wide with burgeoning horror.
Sara hadn't been pleading with him to go on, she had been pleading with him to stop.
Grissom abruptly let go of Sara, his face tight with self-loathing. He pushed off against the wall and looked at her.
He was disgusted with his behaviour.
What must she be thinking of him?
"Sara...I...no, we can't."
She had seen his disgust. God, he must think that she was mad.
Part of her had desperately gambled that this encounter would have helped restore his memory, but half of her hadn't had any thought other than to be with him again. She shouldn't have rushed him.
"No, it's my fault. It's me."
Grissom shook his head as he backed away from her.
"No. This won't happen again. I'll make sure of it."
Sara started to cry in earnest as he turned and headed for the door.
"No! Don't go! Not like this. Please Gil, not like this!"
Grissom's step faltered, but then he carried on.
The slam of the apartment door seemed to echo in Sara's head for an age.
Then the only sound that could be heard was that of sobbing.
. . . . . . . . . . x x x x x x x x x
From that day Grissom was as good as his word. Or as bad, depending on your point of view. He rarely partnered Sara on cases, and usually only when one of the others was present, or it was unavoidable.
For Sara it was a retreat to the bad old days of mistrust and enmity, and the atmosphere at work was terrible. Everyone on the nightshift was walking on eggshells around both of them without any idea why. The two main protagonists were close mouthed about the whole thing. Ask either of them, and the answer was always,
'I'm fine'.
Speculation on dayshift was rife that they had been having an affair and that it had gone wrong. After two weeks without any sign of a thaw in proceedings, Catherine went to see Grissom in his office.
Playing heavily on both her friendship with Gil and her association with him at work, Catherine at first tried to discuss 'the problem' but was firmly rebuffed. She then insisted that Grissom find the plug and pull it.
She pointed out at length that the department as a whole was suffering when two supposedly grown up people started acting like spoilt brats.
Grissom had leaned back in his chair and dropped his pen on his desk.
Catherine was right to be concerned and point out his lack of judgement; he was behaving like an idiot. Though obviously he wasn't going to tell her that.
Just because he was appalled with his own behaviour was no reason to give her the satisfaction of agreeing with his own assessment. He assured Catherine that he would 'deal' with the matter.
Grissom sighed heavily as he seated himself at his desk. He had just finished handing out the assignments to everyone in the breakroom. Sara had been a little subdued, but had brightened a little when she and Warrick had been given a DB found in suspicious circumstances.
He noticed that Sara was beginning to look a little more well rounded than usual and wondered if anyone else had noticed. She was a little over twelve weeks now, and still - as far as he knew - had not told anyone about the pregnancy. He wondered how she was feeling.
It hurt every day to be so close to Sara when she clearly didn't want anything to do with him.
Since the encounter in her apartment he had been experiencing more dreams of a profoundly erotic nature, but no more memories.
Sometimes at work he felt ashamed of his thoughts in Sara's company. It made him sharp when he had no intention of being so.
Sara was not consciously avoiding Grissom, but she tried to minimise her contact with him, just to try to help him get over his disgust at her behaviour. Each time she thought that it was about time that they sit down and discuss the situation away from work, something would always crop up or he would cut her dead without even trying.
It was soul destroying and wearing her down gradually.
The only good thing was that she was blooming in the pregnancy without an iota of any of the classic side effects. No nausea, no cramps, no swollen ankles, no cravings, no faintness, nothing. Zip.
If she didn't know better, she wouldn't have thought she was pregnant.
Except, of course, none of her pants fit anymore, but that was to be expected.
It went with the territory.
Various glasses of fresh orange juice clacked together above the centre of the table and Catherine's voice rose above the hubbub in the diner.
"We rock!"
The rest of the nightshift chorused the toast, and Grissom allowed a smile to escape.
They had cracked a big case last night and now they were all celebrating over breakfast.
Grissom took the opportunity to steal a glimpse of Sara when some of the food order turned up at the table. She looked well, if a little down. She was hiding it better than he thought he was.
It hadn't helped him to realise yesterday that he was going down with one of those unpleasant twenty-four hour flu-like illnesses.
He hated being ill.
He refused to even admit it to himself, let alone Catherine, that he was feeling below par.
To add insult to injury, someone had changed the coffee that was used in the break room. The new stuff tasted foul and he could barely drink it.
Catherine looked around the table with discrete satisfaction. Since her 'chat' with Grissom the other day, things seemed to be mostly back on an even keel.
She noticed that Grissom wasn't eating. It was difficult to tell in the fluorescent strip lighting, but he looked quite pale.
As she wasn't sitting next to him, she leaned over towards him.
"You okay?"
Grissom nodded once.
"It's nothing."
Which proved to Catherine that there was an 'it'.
Hmmm. Interesting.
She filed it away.
Two days later Catherine was listening to Doc. Robbins as he gave her the salient points about their victim on the table.
"...and you can see here in the back the two single stab wounds, one to the left, one right lung. Cause of death was suffocation due to simultaneous pneumothorax. Both lungs collapsed at the same time. What's up with Gil?"
Catherine had been intent on examining the wound sites and took a moment to realise what the pathologist had tagged on the end.
"Excuse me?"
" 'Gruesome Grissom' the man who doesn't bat an eye at anything has had to leave two posts looking very green about the gills - no pun intended."
Catherine eyed the older man speculatively.
"Mmm, yeah. Stomach flu, hit him pretty hard. He'll be fine."
Robbins just shrugged and finished up the notes on his post. He didn't look convinced.
Catherine left the room and changed back out into her regular clothes. She went to find Grissom.
She was on the way to his office when she bumped into him - almost literally - coming out of the men's room.
"Hey, just looking for you."
Catherine looked Grissom over. He looked worse than some of their vic's.
He was as white as a sheet and looked a little unsteady on his feet.
"Well, you've found me."
The pair of them entered Grissom's office and took their usual seats.
"You look like crap, you should be at home."
"Really Doctor Willows?"
Grissom opened his eyes and looked at her blearily. He rummaged around in a pocket for a moment and came up with a couple of individually wrapped dry crackers. He opened the pocket, or at least tried to.
Catherine tutted in amusement to hide her concern, took the packet and opened it. She handed it back to him. He munched slowly on one of the crackers.
"It comes and goes, I'll be okay in a minute. These seem to help."
Catherine looked at him for several long moments, then held up a hand and counted off her fingers.
"You look pale, you're tired, you've ducked out of a couple of posts through nausea and you've got it now too, you're light-headed, you're off your food, and you have frequency."
She grinned at the prostrate Grissom.
"Y'know Gil, if I didn't know that it was impossible, I'd think that you were pregnant."
.
.TBC