Author's Notes: Wow, it feels like I haven't updated since last year! Wait a sec... Sorry, that was bad. I hope everyone's holiday was as good as mine was. Thank you so much for all the wonderful feedback from the last chapter. I want to extend a special thanks to Wiccagirl24 for her invaluable help when I was at a crossroads. And even though I ended up going this route with the story, I just want her to know how much I appreciate her letting me bounce ideas around. Take care and enjoy!
Letting Go
by Kristen Elizabeth
Is it a dream?
When will it end?
When everything we've ever known
Has ended and I'm all alone
Where will I go?
Where will I be?
When you're gone, gone
How in the world will I go on?
- ELO, "Don't Walk Away"
Dear Greg, Nick and Warrick,
Greetings from Bangui, the capital city of the Central African Republic.
We arrived three days ago and spent most of the first day registering at the American Embassy, far more time than we had to in Sarajevo. The US government strongly warns its citizens against traveling to the CAR, but it's a bit too late to be worrying about that. We're here now, for better or for worse.
With the exception of Simon and Berislav, the team is still the same, rested and refreshed after the holidays and ready to get to work. Our new translator is Jomo, who learned English from missionaries as a child. But the official language of the CAR is French. Just FYI, Greg. It'll be easier for you to learn than a tribal language. In addition to the usual suspects, we also have a military guard from the Embassy. Tensions are high here and even in the capital, attacks against foreigners are not rare occurrences. But I'll be fine. Don't worry about me.
Unfortunately, though, it just isn't possible to get out into the country; the bodies have to be brought to us. IFFS has been given an abandoned building to work out of; we visited it for the first time yesterday. In Bosnia, it was bones. Here, it's fresh bodies. And I use the term "fresh" loosely. By the time they make the journey to the capital from wherever the fighting took place, they're pretty ripe. Heat plus humidity equals speedy decomp, after all. But we have no freezers or refrigeration lockers, so once a body comes in, it has to be documented and autopsied immediately. Which means we're always on call. We're told that less than twenty-four hours after they arrive, the bodies have to be cremated. And even with that, the smell remains. You know that smell. Just imagine it multiplied by a hundred.
Enough shop talk. To sum up, I'm here and I'm safe. I wanted to thank you three for coming to the airport to see me off. It was a really hard day for me, and your presence made all the difference in the world. Especially when he didn't come.
How is he? Is he taking care of himself? Eating right? Getting enough sleep? Don't let him work too hard. Remember, you promised to look after him.
And if he ever asks about me, tell him he'll never be too late.
Love, Sara
There was a new, unspoken rule around the lab that unless it was a matter of dire emergency, such as fire or armed intruder, you did not knock on Gil Grissom's office door when it was closed. And those days, it was almost always closed. At least one rookie in fingerprints had gone home crying from the verbal lashing she'd received when she'd unknowingly broken the rule to deliver some results. Ecklie had taken no small amount of pleasure in writing Grissom up for that one. Grissom's answer upon hearing of the blemish on his previously spotless record had been a clear and cold, "Fuck him."
The graveyard shift had become a mine field. Any sudden movement could result in an explosion.
So when Catherine arrived at work on an otherwise unexceptional Wednesday night and passed by his open door on her way to the locker room, it took less than a second of thought before she entered the lair of the beast.
He was barely visible behind a wall of stacked textbooks, journals and paperwork, like Scrooge hiding behind his carefully counted coins. She approached his desk and lightly cleared her throat.
"Whoever you are, get the hell out and come back when you learn how to knock."
"Quit flirting with me," she replied, dryly. "You know how it makes me blush."
Grissom scowled at her over the top of one stack. "Catherine. What do you want?"
"A walk-in shoe closet lined from floor to ceiling with Manolo Blahnik's and Jimmy Choo's." His scowl turned into a deadly glare. "What? You asked."
"Don't let the door hit you on your way out." With that, Grissom disappeared again behind his books.
"Hey." Her temper sparked, Catherine pushed two stacks aside to create a window. What she saw was tragic.
He'd never been a sharp dresser with the exception of court sessions and formal dinners, but he'd at least always managed to find clothes that matched on a daily basis. Now, it looked like he'd dressed in the dark, which probably wasn't out of the realm of possibility. His pants were wrinkled; his shirt had seen better days. His beard was untrimmed and his hair had become an untamed mess of curls. He looked every inch the mad scientist.
The mother in her couldn't resist the urge to reach for his hand. "You look like shit," she told him, compassionately.
"This is a laboratory, not a runway," Grissom snapped. "I know you don't see the distinction, but my work isn't dependent on my physical appearance." He shook off her hand.
"I'm going to let that slide. For now." Catherine came around to his side of the desk. "I came in here to see if you're ready to talk. Your door was open, so I thought I'd risk it."
For the briefest moment, she thought she saw excess moisture in the corners of his eyes. But just as quickly, it was gone. "There's nothing to talk about. 'Love is not a victory march'."
"'It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah'," she finished up. "Good song. I'm surprised you know it." Catherine looked up at the ceiling for a long moment, choosing her words with care. "Gil, I realize that it's none of my business, but maybe if you talked about what happened between you and Sara, it would…"
He silenced her with a look. "I don't want to hear that name."
"Are we pretending she never existed?" Catherine sighed. "How very third grade of us."
Some floodgate deep within him burst just then. Grissom shot out of his chair, stalked wildly to the door and shut it as loudly as possible. "Fine, Catherine. You have a pathological need for the details, so here goes. She came over on New Year's Eve. We ate dinner, drank too much, and end up in bed. You can figure out what happened there, right? Or do I need to elaborate?"
She lifted her chin. "I know about the birds and the bees."
"Great. So, we're lying there and I'm thinking…this is it. This is as close to a perfect moment as a middle-aged fart like me can ever expect to come by. But I should have known." The strain in his voice worried her; how much emotion could a man unaccustomed to the burden of too much feeling take before his heart literally broke? "I should have known, Catherine. There are no perfect moments. Nothing good in life ever lasts. But I let myself forget that for a single, incredible minute…and then it happened."
"Africa?" she guessed.
"She's naked in my bed telling me that she hasn't decided anything, when I know for damn sure that you don't just go around getting inoculated for deadly diseases for the fun of it! And the whole time, all I could think about was what it was like when she was gone and how back then, I didn't know what she tasted like or how soft her skin is or that…" Grissom faltered, lost in the memory. "…or that she has a tattoo on her ankle…" He composed himself. "I couldn't help but imagine…how much harder would it be this time, knowing all of that?"
"Oh, Gil…"
"So…I asked her to marry me." Catherine opened her mouth to speak, but he went on, "She didn't believe it was what I really wanted. That I just wanted to keep her here."
A moment passed. She wasn't sure if she should prod him into continuing, but past experience told her that he was ten times worse off if he bottled everything up. "What happened next?"
"She asked me to go with her. She wanted me to join IFFS and be with her."
It was hard to stun Catherine Willows, and damn near impossible to make her jaw drop. That being said, she had to pick hers up off the floor before she said, "I guess I know what your answer was."
"I told her I was too old to move across the world and start a new life. I think I yelled at her because I know how hard Bosnia was on her, and I don't want her to go back to that kind of hell." Grissom paused for breath and noticed something. "Why are you nodding?"
"Because I agree with you."
His frown was one of deep puzzlement. "This is usually the part where you berate me for being an idiot."
Catherine shook her head. "I don't think you were an idiot this time. I wouldn't drop my life to follow someone else around the world, even if I loved them as much as you love her." She crossed her arms. "This would be a lot easier if I could use her name."
Her admission wasn't what he had expected to hear from his friend, the sensibility to his sense. "Why wouldn't you?"
"Well…because of Lindsey, obviously."
"I don't have any children."
"Also…I don't think I could deal with what she's doing over there," she admitted. "I've seen truly horrible things in my time, but some people just aren't wired to deal with death on that scale, and I think I'm one of them."
"I think I could do it," he murmured, almost to himself.
"Gruesome Grissom."
"I could at least give it a shot."
"Okay." She tilted her head to the side and studied him. "So why didn't you go with her?"
He shook himself out of his reverie. "It's not that simple."
"Oh, I know that. She asked for a hell of a lot from you. It would have been a hell of a lot to ask a normal man."
"Thanks."
"My point is…I think, for once, you made the right choice." Catherine paused. "Actually, when you think about it, she was being incredibly selfish."
Grissom's forehead crinkled. "Well…no. I mean, she wasn't wrong about some things. We couldn't have a normal relationship here. It could be years before she'll be eligible to be a supervisor, if she'd even want the job. I may not like it, but I can't see myself stepping down after this long, either. We'd be stuck in the same holding pattern that kept us apart before she left. All she really asked me to do…was to break that pattern."
"But you didn't."
"No. I didn't." All of the anger he'd been holding inside, and occasionally using to punish the people around him, drained away just then, leaving a heartbroken man behind, the shell of who he once was. "I let her walk out of my life. Again. She's been gone for 43 days. 1,032 hours. 61,920 minutes. 3,715,200 seconds." Grissom looked at her with dead eyes. "I know because I've thought 3,715,200 times that if I'd just done something different…said the right words, had a ring to prove myself…told her I loved her sooner…she would have stayed."
Catherine wrapped her arms around him in a sympathetic embrace. He remained frozen in place, but at least he didn't pull away. "It's okay to be hurting," she told him. "It's even okay to cry."
His chin rested on her shoulder and she could have sworn she felt twin spots of liquid sorrow soak through her shirt.
She hugged him harder. "It'll be our little secret."
During a ten hour layover in Cairo, Egypt, Sara had found a beautiful locket while shopping in the infamous bazaar. She'd bought it immediately, knowing exactly what would go into it.
Now, hanging just over her heart, was Grissom's letter. It had gone around the world and back again, and passed through many hands, some friendly, some not, in order to find her. She couldn't count the number of times she'd read it after Jan had given it to her upon her return to London, but it was enough so that the folded edges were soft from being held. The ink ran in several spots from the tears shed over it. But she carried it with her always now, safely enclosed in tarnished gold.
Her memories of him were not so easily locked away.
Sara saw his face wherever she went, at the Embassy, the market, on the streets. Even in her sleep, he was present. It was a rare night that passed when she didn't wake crying from missing him so terribly, or aching for the pleasure she'd only briefly touched.
She wouldn't do it over again, though, she had decided. What seemed like a lifetime had passed since the car accident with Greg had sent her down a path to reclaim her life. Experiences both good and bad had shaped her, remolded her, irrevocably changed her. But one thing had always remained constant.
She still loved Gil Grissom.
The body laid out on the exam table in front of her and Jan crawled with tropical insects he might have only read about in books. He'd be in geek heaven. If he were there. If he'd come.
"What do you think did this? Machete?"
Jan's question temporarily cleared away her idle thoughts and returned her to the present, where she was supposed to be conducting a preliminary examination on a man brought in from the jungle only hours earlier. Holding her breath, Sara measured the maggot-infested scalp laceration. "Five inches." She gasped for air, taking a giant step away from the corpse. "It's a safe bet."
Jan shook her head at Sara's sudden queasiness. "Okay, I'm the bone girl; you're the hardened CSI. Yet you're the one about to lose your lunch? What's wrong with this picture?"
"I have issues with decomps," Sara informed her. "And that's in a sterile morgue with proper ventilation." She pointed up at the single paddle fan turning lazy circles over their heads. "That's not ventilation of any kind."
"That's for damn sure." A bead of sweat plopped off the tip of Jan's nose. She made a frustrated swipe at it, only to find it followed by another. And then another. "It's too hot, Sara. Let's take a break."
"No breaks. We're almost done, so let's just get it over with and get this poor guy into the fire." Clearing her throat, Sara steeled her attention to the bloated body in front of them. She'd avoided touching it until that moment, but she could no longer put off the task of undressing the victim. The clothes would be saved for future identification, long after the man had been reduced to ash.
As Sara worked up her nerve, a large centipede crawled out from between the victim's open, grotesquely swollen lips. Bile rose up in her throat.
"Want me to do it?" Jan asked as Sara clapped both her hands over her mouth.
Sara nodded fervently. "Yeah. I'll be…" She pointed to the door that led out into the hallway.
The air outside the room was a degree cooler and the scent of death was reduced by a fraction. It was enough of a change to help clear her head. Sara walked to the dirty window and drew in a deep breath. As she exhaled, she glanced down at the dusty city street.
"Sara?" It was Jan, coming up behind her, smelling of death. "Can I ask you something?"
She didn't turn around, but she nodded.
"Are you pregnant?"
Finally, Sara looked at her friend. "What makes you say that?"
"A combination of things, not the least of which is your extremely tender stomach." Jan paused. "I don't mean to pry and I know what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but you've been so upset since you came back, I just thought maybe…" She trailed off.
"I'm not pregnant." Her voice was dull
"You're sure?"
Sara glanced back out the window. "Pretty sure."
Jan cocked an eyebrow. "You don't sound sure."
"Take my word for it."
"Okay. Then why do you sound so upset?" Her friend came up beside her. "Not being pregnant is a good thing…right?"
Sara lifted her shoulder. "I cried when I started my period."
She took a moment to digest this. "I'm sorry, Sara. He must be a hell of a guy."
"He is." Her hand covered the locket containing his words. "I mean, we used protection. Still there's always that small margin of error." She brought the gold up to her lips. "I can't imagine having a baby, but he's the only man I'd ever want to have children with. But we had our shot and it didn't happen so…that's that."
"You never know."
"No. I know. There's too much…we can't seem to get past any of it…" Sara's words dissolved into a sob. "I'm sorry. I'm not a crier, but…" Her chin dropped at the same time as her tears.
"Hey." Jan put her arm around her friend. "It's okay. It'll be our little secret."
"I don't believe it."
Nick looked up from his lunch as Greg strolled into the break room, his attention glued onto a magazine. "What's so unbelievable?"
Greg kept reading as he pulled out a chair and sat down. "This article."
"What's unbelievable is that you're actually reading Playboy for the articles," Warrick said after checking out the cover of Greg's magazine.
"At work, no less." Nick clucked his tongue. "Ecklie would confiscate that in a heart beat. For his own use, of course."
"Guys…" Greg glanced up. "It's about Sara."
"Sara's in Playboy?" Nick could not have sounded more shocked than if he'd been told Grissom was featured in Playgirl.
"Huh," was all Warrick said.
Rolling his eyes, Greg held up the magazine. "It's an article about IFFS, specifically one Sara Sidle."
Warrick scanned the pages. "Written by…Simon Christiansen. Why do I know that name?"
"Wasn't he that guy Grissom wanted us to investigate, then told us to forget about?" Nick got up to read over Warrick's shoulder. "And the one Sara mentioned in her letters."
"One plus one equals two," Greg quipped. "We should have already done this math."
"It's a good piece," Warrick noted. "A little heavier than I like my girly mags, but…he makes Sara sound like a cross between Mother Theresa and Helen of Troy."
Greg's eyes grew wide as he looked out through the glass wall. "Ix-nay on the Agazine-may! Ow-nay!"
Warrick frowned. "I liked it when he just spoke Bosnian."
"I was partial to the Elvish," Nick snickered.
Just then, Grissom entered…and caught three of his CSI's gathered around a Playboy magazine.
"Boys," he said with a trace of warning in his tone. He snatched it out of Warrick's hands. "Grow up."
They watched as he started to close the magazine up, but when a particular picture caught his eye, he froze.
Artistically speaking, it was a beautiful image. But it was the subject matter that made it come to life. The photographer had captured Sara examining a bone; her face in profile was forever captured with an intense look of fascination, tempered by an underlying melancholy.
It said more about Sara than any words in the article could.
Warrick cleared his throat. "I've got DNA results due." He stood up to go.
Nick caught on and gathered up what was left of his lunch. "Yeah. Um…Ballistics paged me awhile back."
Greg remained seated until Nick kicked him in the shin. "What? I'm on break!" He caught Warrick's look, and sighed. "Fine. Just to round things out, I'll pretend to have something to do in Trace."
Grissom ignored all of this, and didn't notice that he was soon alone in the break room. He wasn't even aware of the fact that eventually he sat down in the chair Greg had occupied. The magazine lay flat in front of him as he stared at her image.
There were women in the world far more conventionally beautiful…so what made her so captivating? Why, when faced with just a picture of her, was he as dumbfounded as he had been the first time she'd raised her hand in his lecture to ask him a question?
He closed his eyes, remembering.
"Sara…talk to me."
"Is that an order from my supervisor?"
"It's a request. From a friend."
Her laughter. "Sorry. I just find that funny."
Sometimes his memory was a curse.
"I'm not worth the risk."
"How long have you known what I said in that investigation room?"
"I heard it all for myself."
"You weren't supposed to."
"I'm glad I did. Or else I would have eventually started hating you."
But she never had. No matter what he'd done, her feelings had been a constant, like his, only she'd never hidden anything. Of all the people in his life, Sara had been the easiest to read, but the hardest to handle.
"I don't want to spend the rest of my life chasing after something that's never going to let me catch it."
Being caught. Being known. It was all the same, and frightening to him.
"I love you, Gil."
The words he craved and dreaded in equal amounts. God, he loved the way his name sounded in her voice. Exasperated when he confused her, mischievous when she was out to confuse him. Breathy and throaty when whispered in his ear as they made love...soft and sleepy afterwards.
"I have to go. You have to let me go."
And he had. Not once, but twice. Was that love, or just the easy way out?
"'We are all a little weird and life's little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutual weirdness and call it love.'"
Nick's surprising wisdom. The memories were congealing into a large lump in his throat. Grissom swallowed heavily. The lump was moving into his chest, pressing on his heart. He'd had her for one shining moment. And then…she was gone. He hadn't stopped her. He hadn't tried hard enough. He'd given up.
"I'm worried about you. Twenty years from now, I don't want to still be dropping by your empty townhouse to find you eating alone."
"Gil." As if she could sense him remembering her very words, he felt Catherine coming up behind him. "What've you got there?"
His thumb rested over Sara's lips on the page. "Nothing." He paused. "And everything."
Catherine double-blinked. "Is that Sara?"
"My Sara," he said softly. She took a seat next to him. A moment passed before the light bulb went off in Grissom's mind. "She's my soulmate."
Catherine had one word for him. "Duh."
His eyes darted back and forth, but saw nothing but her face. "I want to be with her."
"Don't make me repeat myself."
"By the time you figure it out…you really could be too late."
He slowly turned his head and looked at her for a long moment. "I've gotta go."
She blinked as he got up and left. Confused, all she could do was follow him through the hallways and into his office. It wasn't until he'd grabbed his briefcase and started shoving personal effects into it that she found her voice.
"You're not thinking what I think you're thinking…are you?"
He spoke rapidly, as fast as he packed away his time with the LVPD's crime lab. "Feed the spiders. You know the drill. I'll write to tell you what to do with them permanently."
"Oh my god…you are." Gone was the zombie who'd been walking around the lab for the past few weeks. But there was also no trace of the confusion and denial he'd been carting around on his shoulders for the past few years. This Grissom was decided. Determined. It was a refreshing change. Yet, a startling one. She blew out a breath. "I have no idea what to say. I don't want to talk you out of it, but…have you thought this through? Are you just going to hop a plane to Africa and hope you bump into her on the Serengeti?"
"First of all, she's nearer to the rainforest than the grasslands. And second…I'll figure it out." Grissom hesitated before he picked up his name plate. "Tell the guys. I think they'll understand."
"They will," she agreed. Catherine held out her hand for it. "Let me hang onto that." She looked down at his gold-embossed name with reverence. "You know, Gil…I don't do goodbyes very well."
"Then we'll skip that part." He took one final look around. "Take care of the lab."
There were actual tears in Catherine Willows' eyes. But there was also a smile on her face. "That's it?"
"That's it." He smiled back, for the first time in weeks. "Good luck."
"Same to you. Both of you." Catherine brushed away the moisture on her cheek as Grissom walked out the door for the last time.
To Be Continued
A/N: As I mentioned earlier, I reached a crossroads in this story, with this particular chapter, and I had two routes in front of me. I chose the one you've just read, but I did write an alternate scenario. If anyone is interested in reading it, I've posted it on my livejournal. My username is belismakr. Take care!