Happily Ever After

Chapter 5

Grissom closed his eyes and thanked God for quiet. Sara was asleep and Hope had talked herself to sleep after dinner. He didn't like climbing into bed while Sara was still awake. He wanted to have sex. He wanted to have sex very badly. He had not been inside his Sara since the incident. He knew he didn't deserve to be so he didn't complain and tried not to think about it. He spent half his night on the ancient sofa in his office and only stumbled to bed when was it was almost an impossibility that he would wake her. He refused to let Sara wake up to find his side of the bed empty. That would only cause more issues. She would wonder if he had snuck out, if he didn't want to be around her.

Then there was Eva. She didn't call often. But she called enough for it to be an issue. He tried not to think to much about what had gone on. It had clouded his first weeks back home. So much so that Hope would often ask why he had his sad face on.

"I didn't stomp on the bug Daddy. I put it on the paper and took it outside like you told me."

"Did the baseball people lose a game? I forget which one ones you like. Kramer said your team is a loser but I told her she was wrong."

For the sake of his daughter and his sanity, he blocked out Eva and the kiss and Sara finding them. By some miracle he had been saved from an all male intervention that he had been sure was imminent. What would he say? The man who thought logically and clearly had no explanation.

Did he love his wife? Yes.

Was he happily married? Happier each day.

Was his sex life good? Wonderful .

Then what in God's name had he been doing? Gil Grissom had walked right into the thing with Eva. Not blindly, as he previously thought. No, he had seen the woman coming a mile away. He was a smart, handsome, fairly intriguing man. He knew when a woman wanted him. He knew what it looked like and felt like. He dealt with it every semester as Madison or Jennifer or Laurie made some transparent play for his attentions. He came home and laughed about it with Sara. When they saw his long legged, dark haired beauty striding through the halls to give a special lecture on Theoretical Physics or to teach the odd chemistry class, they were either spurred on by the challenge or retreated with envy.

His phone let out a sound to indicate that he had a voice mail. He picked it up. Eva. This was becoming tiresome. She didn't call every day but she did call and he had done something awfully stupid hoping to make her stop. They had met for coffee and he explained to her that she was a lovely woman but he had a wife. He had made a terrible mistake, sure that rational thought would prevail with a fellow scientist.

She had nodded and made understanding noises. They had walked to her car where she proceeded to grab his crotch. Stunned and feeling like an idiot, he had pushed her away, turned tail, and run. Why men thought they would ever understand women escaped him. He had met the woman with the hopes of squashing the phone calls. Now he had created another secret. Sara didn't know about the phone calls and she didn't know about the meeting. He tossed around the idea of telling her, but couldn't summon up much courage, keenly aware that he was making a dreadful mistake.

Sara stared at the clock. It was two A.M and he still wasn't in bed. Four weeks. It had been four weeks since her husband had made love to her. Was it because he was sleeping with someone else? He rarely had his phone these days, saying that he forgot it since it was summer. Being at home got him out of the habit of carrying it everywhere. He was at home all the time now. Hovering like he did when he came back from being sick. Only this time it was more like a shadow of Grissom. He kissed her and hugged her and generally showed affection. But he made no attempt to make love to her.

When would he have time to continue his-what was it? His flirtation with Eva? No, it had been more than a flirtation. An affair. She loathed to use the word but it more accurately represented the situation.

She was resisting every urge she had to check his cell phone bill or listen to his voicemail messages. She didn't want to become one of those women. If she thought her husband had lied or was continuing to lie about Eva then there really was no hope of repairing the problem. So she did what Sara Sidle Grissom did best. She waited, watched and took meticulous mental notes. She would give him another week of this ghost like behavior.

"Gil Grissom, my patience is running thin. I waited for you while you made up your mind about us. I waited for you when you were sick. I don't know if I can wait for you to finish doing your penance."

xxx

Over the next seven days, he continued with the pattern he couldn't seem to shake. Don't engage his friends unless absolutely necessary. His plan was to do nothing. It wasn't really a plan. A plan would have suggested some conscious thought. There was nothing conscious about his actions. In truth, he had been running on automatic pilot for months. Conscious thought would have caused him to acknowledge Eva's flirtation and the change in his behavior. The distance he had sought to put between him and his family.

A man did not do something for fives years of married life, like coming home for dinner or never forgetting anniversaries and suddenly, for no reason, stop. It wasn't about Eva. Or maybe it was. He couldn't be sure if he was just that attracted to her or simply flattered that some other woman wanted him. Not a girl, but a real woman who showed interest in him. He didn't think it was either, although they were certainly contributing factors. Sara had loved him for nearly twenty years. She had never wavered or stopped or tried to pretend otherwise. This new confection that was Eva sent him whirling through space without the benefit of any of gravities weight.

His phone let out a sound. He looked at the number. Warrick.

"What's up, Doc?" Gil Grissom said into the phone.

"You know, Grissom, after all these years, you can't tell a joke for shit."

"I have you know that Hope Angel finds me very funny. My ladybug joke was a hit at Ashok Ellendula's birthday party."

"Yeah, well, Hope and Kramer think we hung the moon. I figure we got about a decade left of Daddy invincibility."

"Speak for yourself. By that time I will be an adorably crotchety old man. You will just be an irritating, middle age father," Grissom laughed lightly. "How's the residency?"

Warrick let out a clipped sound. "Wonderfully difficult."

"Sounds like the right man for the right job."

Warrick eased the next words out. "I need to talk to you."

Grissom pursed his lips and rubbed the whiskers around his mouth. "So talk."

"I need to see your face."

"Why?" Family scuttlebutt had it that Warrick was striving to remain neutral, reminding the others that Grissom had forgiven them for their mistakes over the years.

"You had lunch near the hospital last week."

Grissom didn't like where this was headed. "Does Sara know?"

"I don't think so. She is resisting the urge to check your cell phone records. So we need to talk. Face to face."

"Brass and Nicky?"

"The don't know, but could find out. Suburban life is small town life."

Just then Sara appeared in the door way of his office. She was dressed in a white short tank dress made of something breezy and light. Her well muscled legs were tan, though she had not spent very much time in the sun. She smiled and mouthed one word. Dinner.

"When, Rick?"

"Tomorrow. Lunch. Your buying."

Grissom hung up and went to his evening meal of turkey meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green beans.

now.