Chapter Six

When she turned and saw him stand in in the cold morning sunlight, the grey in his hair like silver, it was almost like a Thursday of so long ago. They had both seen death that day, both despaired - Grissom in his silence, she in her anger - and he had stood leaning against his car when she walked into the lab's car park. Just stood still and waited and she had walked to him, every step a change. He'd driven her away and he'd told her he'd wanted to kiss her and for a while, she'd felt more alive than at any other time she could remember.

And then her heart had died a little and she had left.

"Hello, Sara," he said softly, leaning slightly against her car. She could see now his face was more drawn and he seemed frailer, but it was still Grissom. Still the mind that had met hers and the hands that had rested against her skin at night, drawing out the smell of death.

"Grissom," she said, and even to her it sounded cool, winter coming.

"Catherine said you..."

She held up a hand. "I can imagine what Catherine said. I just... I thought you were still in physiotherapy."

"I am. I took a week off to 'sort out the other major muscle you have broken', as Catherine put it."

"Your brain?" she joked, and he merely looked at her.

"My heart," he said quietly and she hardly had time to draw breath before he went on, as if he'd never said it. "Do you mind that I'm here, Sara? Catherine said you would be okay with it, but Catherine has her own ideas at times."

"I mind a little," she replied and she could see the hurt in him from the stillness of his face, trying not to give anything away. "But I'm also glad to see you."

"I'm glad to see you. You... You look good," he said hesitantly, still not giving much away. Sometimes reading Grissom was like reading old bones. The evidence was slight and often buried under layers of rock and earth. But for the bone experts, they could still tell a story.

She had started to think herself a Grissom expert.

"You don't."

He laughed slightly, and that too was different. "Always honest Sara Sidle."

'Never honest Gil Grissom,' she thought, but that was a bitter thought from the Sara that had left and held more resentment than truth.

"Catherine said you had a lot of vacation days due," he went on after a moment, looking intently at her. "Still working too hard?"

"Just like in Vegas" she confirmed and he smiled a little, as he always did.

"You work too hard."

She turned to see him in the doorway, smiling at her and the scattered files around her feet. A slimmer of sunlight found the silver in his hair, and he looked for a moment almost ethereal. Gil Grissom the ghost.

"I was just making sure we didn't miss anything," she said, and he gave her a stern glance.

"Sara..."

"I'll be done in a minute."

"When I say that, I'm usually not done for hours," he replied. "I know every workaholic excuse. You can't fool me."

She finally put the paper down and walked over, leaning in to kiss him softly. Not a ghost's kiss, lips so very human. "I never could."

"Let's take some time off and go somewhere," he whispered against her lips, and as always, she nodded. She had told him the same just a few days ago, and he too had nodded.

They would take that time off very soon. Just after she'd solved this case.

They never did go somewhere, she thought, for all the times they had decided they would. Always a new case. Always one more dead to listen to.

"I was hoping you would take some time off and go with me somewhere," he said, almost as if he was remembering the same thing.

"Where?"

"Anywhere."

"Another idea of Catherine's?" she asked, wondering if she should send Cath some silent thanks or silent curses.

"Her suggestion. My desire," he said simply, and the unspoken implication seemed to fill her with equal fear and longing. She could tell him no. She could have told Catherine no. She could live on her life in Boston and never revisit the past - but she'd never know then.

"Why?"

"I thought time off would be..."

"No. Why?"

"Because I love you," he said and she wasn't sure who was the most surprised at his words, him or her. "Would you like to start anew, Sara? Meet again?"

She looked at him in silence, remembering pain and hurt and betrayal and love and care and a comfortable silence on a Sunday morning, her head against his chest while watching Discovery. A simple little scene burned into memory for the simple little feeling of peace.

She hadn't had much of it elsewhere in her life.

"No," she finally said and she saw his face fall. "What has happened between us will always have happened. What happened to my father and mother will always have happened. I think I've been trying to change it through my work. But time only knows one way. Not even a little child's desperate wish can change that."

"I'm sorry," he said and she smiled briefly, a smile of loss and pain.

"I will not start anew with you, Gil Grissom. But we could try to heal what already is."

He smiled then, like a sunrise, and she knew she'd never stopped loving him. She had just stopped idolizing him.

"I'd like that," he said, and she leaned against the car next to him, watching the sea move. "Where would you like to go?"

"Anywhere?"

"Anywhere," he confirmed, and it wasn't quite a star. It was more another lap of a relay, not quite the same Sara and Grissom running it. Maybe it would have another finishing line too.

Feeling his arm pressed against hers, she hoped so. Oh, she hoped so very much.