A/N: Hello everyone, I've got a new ship! I've fallen head over heels for GSR and yes, I know I'm 16 years late to this party. But hey, better late than never! First off, I don't own CSI, just play with the characters. Second, I don't intentionally copy anyone else's work on this site. There is A TON of fanfic already written about Sara/Gil and the subject matter is limited. So, if parts of my story sound similar to yours, I apologize in advance. This is my first CSI story. Please read and review, but no flames please!
"I'm glad I caught you."
I looked over my shoulder to see Grissom standing in the doorway to the locker room, hands hanging loosely by his sides, fidgeting from side to side on his feet.
"Hey, yeah, I was just heading out, I'm beat." I slammed my locker shut and slung my canvas bag over my shoulder. "See you tonight."
"Wait, Sara-"
I stopped and tilted my head to the side. "What is it? Don't tell me I forgot to fill out some paperwork because-"
"No, that's not why-" he cleared his throat. "How's your neck?"
My hand fluttered to the side of my neck, touching the sore spot courtesy of our last case at a mental hospital. I shrugged. "I've had worse – of course, I can't see it so I don't know how bad it looks-"
I gave a soft gasp of surprise as Grissom covered the distance between us in quick strides, his piercing blue gaze zeroed in on my neck.
"Tilt your chin up to the light."
I felt a shiver go through my body at his words that had nothing to do with the coolness of the room. Maintaining our eye contact, I lifted my chin and exposed my neck, hoping that he couldn't see the rapid flutter of my pulse under the skin.
"So, am I hideous?" I joked after nearly a minute of him staring at my neck in silence.
His right hand came up and stopped just short of touching the sore spot. "It's going be a nasty bruise, Sara, but you could never be hideous."
I shivered again as he dropped his hand and pulled a small tube out of his pocket. "Here – the reason I wanted to catch you was to give you this. It will speed the healing process."
He dropped the small tube into my hand, and I read the label aloud. "Arnica cream?"
Grissom nodded. "It's good for bruises, sprains, burns, and certain types of insect bites."
I grinned. "Thank you."
"It's the least I can do after leaving you alone-"
"This wasn't your fault, Grissom. You were gone for less than five minutes, and I'm trained in weaponless defense, remember?"
"He had a weapon, Sara."
I sighed. "Not really. The pottery shard wasn't a knife or a gun- and besides, you got the door open in time. I knew you would – I knew you'd be back, that all I had to do was hang on."
He shook his head at me, and I could tell he wanted to say something, but he couldn't or wouldn't say it here. Ever since I had shared my troubled past with him a couple of months ago, we had started to spend time together outside of work. I wouldn't say we were dating, it was more like a renewal of the friendship that we had had once upon a time before I'd moved to Vegas and he'd become my supervisor. Even so, the attraction was there, at least on my side, bubbling just under the surface. And at times like this, when he was looking at me with an emotion that I hesitated to put a name to, I dared to hope that he could feel the same way about me.
I reached out and patted his shoulder. "I'm fine, Grissom."
"You only say that when you're not."
"Well, crazy people do make me feel crazy," I repeated the phrase that I'd said to him earlier. "I think I just need to go home, eat, and sleep. I will be fine."
He caught my hand in his and gave it a brief squeeze before releasing it. "Do you want to go to breakfast with me?"
I felt the air leave my lungs as I stared at him. Did he honestly just ask me out on a date? Just the two of us? Now, after all this time? When I asked him this very same question, except it was to dinner, three years ago, he had looked like a deer in the headlights. Did I have that same expression on my face now?
"Sara? If you're too tired, I understand-"
I snapped out of my internal reverie.
"Breakfast sounds great."
I replayed that scene in the locker room and my breakfast date with Grissom over and over in my head during the following weeks. Our date hadn't ended with a kiss or been filled with romantic sighs and glances, and I tried to rationalize it to myself by the simple fact that we went to our diner. We were regulars there and everyone knew us. Of course, we couldn't get into any hanky-panky in the back booth,
But Grissom did insist on driving me home and he also put the arnica cream on my neck, without wearing gloves, before I got out of his Tahoe. The sensation and memory of his fingers on my skin was enough to make sleep impossible for another two hours.
Grissom once asked me what my diversions were and at that time, I couldn't give him an honest answer without revealing my feelings. I've taken classes in cooking, kick boxing, marine science, and even painting all to blow off steam and forget the horrors of the things I witness every day on the job. I've tried to 'get a life' and date men but as soon as they find out what I do for a living, most of them are repulsed by my occupation and me. The honest truth is that all of my diversions have been futile attempts to distract me from the one man I can't have.
I've known that Gil Grissom is the man for me since I took his seminar in San Francisco. Not only did he answer all my questions about entomology and forensic science, but he asked me questions, scientific ones, and waited to hear the answers. He was the first man to make me feel beautiful for my mind, not just my body. Hell, he was the first man to make me feel beautiful period. Not too skinny, not too toothy, or too broken.
I know that Grissom is emotionally unavailable – but not because he doesn't care about people. He does. Several years ago, during a case I told him that I wished I could be more like him and not feel anything. I still cringe when I think about those words, because I knew even as I said them that they weren't true. I just wanted to hurt him because I was hurting.
He feels things deeply. He has a good poker face, but his eyes give him away, and once in a while, his emotions do come bubbling to the surface when he can't compartmentalize anymore. That's when he goes and rides the roller coasters and screams until he's hoarse.
I've seen the emotions burning in his eyes when he's looked at me the past few months: fear, need, love. I know that I need to call him on it, to sit down and have the scary conversation because he's never going to initiate it. I need to work through his fears and logic and science because he's more than a boss to me. He's why I moved to Vegas, and I want him to be the reason I stay.
I need to find the words to convince him that the benefits will outweigh the risks.
"Sara, Nick's been abducted."
I sank into the steamy perfumed water of my bathtub and let the tears come. Soon my body was shaking with the sobs I couldn't contain any longer, the sobs that I'd managed to hold inside the entire time Nick had been missing and Gil had nearly been blown to pieces along with the kidnapper. The water was rippling and slapping against the sides of my tub with the force of my emotions, but I honestly didn't care. I didn't care if the tub overflowed, and I caused a flood that made the floor cave into the apartment below and the manager fined me and. . . .
I took a deep, shuddering breath attempting to stop the train wreck of my thoughts. Nick was safe. We had found him. He was recuperating at home under the hovering, overprotective presence of his parents. He had texted me earlier that day, reminding to come over after I got off shift. I had shown up with take out from the diner and Nick met me at his door, throwing his arms around me.
"You're a sight for sore eyes, Sidle."
I grinned. "Me or the food?"
He shook his head. "Get in here! Oh, but let's keep it down, huh? The folks are still asleep."
"Is that what regular people do at six o'clock in the morning?"
"I've heard that rumor, yes." There was another knock and Nick answered it quickly to admit Warrick, Greg, and Catherine.
"Where's Grissom?" I squeaked the words past the lump in my throat.
Catherine pursed her lips as if she was searching for an answer that wouldn't offend any of us. "Oh, you know the joys of being a supervisor – the paperwork is never done. He said not to wait, that he'll try and join us later."
I sighed as I turned on the hot water tap and let more heat flow into my tepid bath water. Gil had never showed up at Nick's this morning. It was supposed to have been our first unofficial team breakfast meeting – unofficial only because Nick was still on paid leave. Two weeks ago, on the night Grissom and Warrick had pulled Nick out of the ground, Grissom had told Ecklie he wanted his guys back. To everyone's surprise, Ecklie agreed. This alone was cause for celebration, our team would be reunited, things would get back to normal. And yet, things were still out of sync, out of balance. The fallout from Nick's abduction were still affecting all of us, some more than others.
I shut off the tap and leaned back in the tub, my tears drying on my face, my breathing evening out at last. Ever since Nick's abduction, the nightmares had returned. I was no stranger to them. I'd had night terrors all my life. My childhood monster had been my own father, as I relived twisted dream versions of him beating my mother and then turning on me. My adult dream monsters were more complicated and fluctuated between the real-life criminals that I tried with scientific evidence to bring to justice and the near-death experiences of my own team members. This afternoon, I had awoken from a particularly vivid one: Gil had died in the explosion, and we never found Nick. He had suffocated in that glass coffin somewhere in the desert sands. I shuddered and pulled the plug on my tub. This bath was no longer therapeutic. The chill had set into my bones, and I didn't know if I would ever feel warm again.
As I wrapped a towel around my dripping body, my thoughts drifted to Grissom, wondering if he was asleep or awake in his townhouse on the other side of the Strip. After the case with Adam Trent, I felt like we had been making progress in our personal relationship. He had even asked me to call him Gil when we were outside of the office. I felt like I had been close to having the serious conversation with him that we had been dancing around for years, the one that would answer once and for all what to do about this, about us.
But then Nick was abducted and like a turtle, like the forensic scientist he was, Gil Grissom withdrew back into the microscope. He was present at work, he handed out assignments, was ready and willing to offer advice about cases, but he didn't leave the lab, and he buried himself in paperwork, making absolutely sure that everything was correct and up to date. Ecklie was thrilled with Grissom's overnight turnaround, apparently blind to the fact that his night shift supervisor was in danger of burn out.
I saw the signs and I was scared. I saw the bloodshot eyes, the rubbing of the temples, pinching of the nose, the faraway look in his eyes that showed he wasn't really tuned into what the team was saying during staff meetings and case debriefs. At first, I gave him space, knowing that Nick's abduction had affected us all deeply and we were all dealing with it in different ways. But after a week of radio silence, I reached out via text message. No response. I called and left voice mails. No response. Three days ago, I stopped by his office when I got off shift.
"Hey."
His head shot up at the sound of my voice and he took off his glasses. "Hey, you off?"
I nodded and came inside to stand in front of his desk. "Come to breakfast with me."
He sat back in his chair and stared at me with that emotion I couldn't read for a long moment. I felt my heart thudding in my chest. "Fine – excuse me for caring about you-" I turned to leave and he was suddenly in front of me.
"Wait, Sara-"
My heart was now in my throat. Were those tears in his eyes? What internal demons was he dealing with? And why couldn't he just let me in?
"I – it matters a great deal to me that you care."
I snorted. "I'm tired of this dance, Gris. I thought we were friends."
"We are."
"I thought-" I swallowed, not wanting to say the words here, knowing how important it was to compartmentalize things and to keep even the hint of a personal relationship out of the workplace. So, I changed tacks. "Really? Friends talk to each other. They don't shut each other out."
A pained expression crossed his face. "I'm fine."
I snorted. "That's rich, using my own words against me. You and I both know you're not fine. The whole team knows you're not fine. The only one who doesn't have a clue is Ecklie! He finally thinks you've turned into the perfect supervisor!"
"Sara-"he said in a warning tone, his gaze flicking to the doorway and back to me.
I turned and noticed that my outburst had attracted an audience. Hodges, Greg, and a few other lab techs were just outside the glass, hanging on every word.
My eyes fluttered shut. "Good night, Grissom."
I had hoped as I walked away that he would follow, or at the very least call and join me for breakfast. But in typical, aggravating Grissom-style my hopes were in vain as the radio silence was maintained. Even when I called in sick the next two days, I simply got the standard reply "Feel better soon" and no follow-up call to see how I was doing. This morning when he didn't show up at Nick's for the team breakfast, I had silently wondered if it had been my fault.
"Damn it!" I said out loud as I furiously rubbed my hair dry with a towel. I felt bad for the way we'd left things, for all the things I couldn't say in an office environment. I checked the time: five pm. Plenty of time before our shift started to see if I couldn't talk some sense into Gilbert Grissom.
He took such a long time to open the door, I was afraid that he was finally getting the sleep he so desperately needed. I couldn't tell if any lights were on inside since he'd drawn the blackout curtains to keep out the strong Vegas sunshine. I shifted the grocery bag to my hip and dug in my purse for my cell. I should have called or texted him first, and not just dropped by unannounced. My fingers had just closed around the phone when the door flew open and my purse slipped from my shoulder, landing at my feet on the step.
"Hi," I exhaled softly, not wanting to startle the man further.
Gil's eyes were still blood shot and his wavy locks were standing out in all directions on his head. At first it didn't seem like he recognized me, but then he scrubbed a hand across the scruff of his beard, and he blinked heavily. "Sara?"
I smiled softly as I bent down to retrieve my purse and placed it inside the bag of groceries. "Hi. I thought I'd stop by and see if you'd like some company. I brought some food and I thought we could talk-"
"Sara," he breathed my name softly, bringing trembling hands up to cup my face. "You're here."
I swallowed hard at the raw emotion I saw in his eyes and tried not to tremble under his fingertips. He'd never touched me like this before and if this was the only time he did, I wanted to remember every second of it. "I'm here," I whispered just before his lips touched mine. My hands were full, otherwise I would have wrapped them around his back and pulled him into me. As an alternative, I let my body sink into his and I felt Gil's response as one of his hands left my face to cup my neck and pull me closer. But after a few seconds I could feel him startle and he abruptly pulled away, staring at me with wide-eyed alarm.
"Sara? What just – did we just?"
I bit my lip to keep in the groan of frustration "If I have to explain kissing to you, Dr. Grissom, then it really has been a long time for you, hasn't it?"
He scrubbed a hand across his face and flushed a deep red. "I can explain – if you'll let me."
"This ought to be good." I grinned at him as he held the door for me, and we went into his darkened townhouse together.
"Sleepwalking?"
He nodded off my tone of incredulity. "I haven't done it since I was a teenager. The number of adolescents who experience sleepwalking or talk in their sleep is actually-"
I held up a hand. "We're not talking about statistics, Gil. I want to hear about you. What's going on with you?"
He dropped his gaze to his half-eaten sandwich. I had brought all the fixings to make BLT's – turkey bacon for him, and tempeh bacon for me. We had eaten in silence for a while before he had dropped the bomb that he had been asleep when he had answered the door. Just my luck, our first kiss and he had been asleep for it!
"I haven't been sleeping well since-" he broke off and lifted his gaze back to mine, willing me to fill in the blanks.
"Nick's abduction?"
He shook his head. "No, since the Adam Trent case, actually."
I leaned against his couch cushions, my heart rate skyrocketing. "Why?"
"You could have died."
I shook my head. "I didn't."
"In my dreams, you do."
Those five words brought me up short, because in my nightmares he died too. Inwardly I cursed myself. I should have come over sooner, I should have pushed for this conversation sooner. He'd been fighting the same fears as me all by himself. We could have been fighting these demons together. I pulled myself out of my head as I realized he was still speaking.
"I started taking melatonin to help me sleep, and it helped. But after Nick's abduction the dreams got worse, and sleep eluded me entirely."
I stood up and came around to his side, squatting down by his chair. "So you switched to something stronger?"
He nodded. "I talked to my doctor, and he prescribed some low dose sleeping pills. Since I live alone it took a while for me to notice the side effects. I was getting some sleep, but the nightmares were more vivid, and I'd wake up in strange places."
"What do you mean 'strange places'?" I frowned up at him.
"I woke up in my car once and another time I woke up on the front steps."
I shuddered as I realized that he could have been seriously injured or killed while under the influence of those sleeping pills. "Gil, I don't want you taking those pills anymore. Not unless someone is staying overnight with you to make sure you don't go wandering off in your sleep."
He reached out a hand but stopped short of touching me. I nodded permission and he cupped my cheek. "Sara, I haven't taken one in four days. The sleepwalking hasn't stopped. The nightmares haven't stopped."
I nodded against his hand, making a decision as I rose to my feet. "Do you want to sleep with me?"
I watched the emotions play across his face. Watched him swallow, watched the wheels churn in his head as I repeated a variation of the words I'd spoken to him years ago. "That way when you wake up screaming, or begin to sleepwalk, I'll be there to hold you and wake you up."
"Sara, I – I still don't know what to do about - us."
I smiled and dropped a feather light kiss on his lips. "I do. Come to bed, Gil."
I tugged on his hand and part of me was surprised when he gave in, his shoulders slumping in defeat or relief or exhaustion as I led him out of the kitchen and down the hall to his bedroom. It was dark and cool inside because the blackout curtains were drawn, the only light coming from a small gap where the curtains didn't meet and sunlight spilled across the floor. In the dim light I could see that the room was simply furnished with the king-sized bed taking up most of the space. I took a minute to remind myself that I wasn't here for me, but for him. This was an important step in our relationship. I needed Gil to know that first and foremost I loved him as a friend and that I would always be here for him in that capacity. That didn't mean I was giving up on the idea of us – but for tonight, I would once again put the topic on hold.
I let go of his hand and sat down at the end of his bed to kick off my sneakers and socks. Removing the hair band from my hair, I looked up to see him frozen in place, staring at me with longing in his eyes. He was still dressed in pajama pants and an old T-shirt, ready to fall back into bed and I was glad that I had worn a pair of stretch jeans and a long loose tunic top. I patted the bed next to me and he came and perched beside me.
I laughed, a deep belly laugh. "You look terrified. I'm not going to jump your bones, Gil. You need to sleep, nothing more and nothing less. Come on, you get under the covers. I'll stay with you until you fall asleep."
Wearily, he climbed under the covers as I went around to the other side and stretched out on top of the bed. I laced my fingers behind my head and stared up at the ceiling. The only sound was our breathing and I have no idea how much time passed. I thought he might have drifted off until he spoke, his voice startling me out of a semi-slumber.
"Sara?"
"Hm- yes?"
"I know what I want to do about this."
I chuckled. "You've made your mind up in the last ten minutes?"
I heard the bed sheets rustling and suddenly I was blinking tears away as the room was flooded with low light from a bedside lamp. Gil locked eyes with me before he crawled over and very carefully lay down next to me with his head in my lap.
"Is this okay?"
"Yes," I murmured, one of my hands drifting down to play with his curls. "Please go on."
"I've operated my whole life with my head, with science. What I feel for you, Sara, isn't scientific, I can't fit it into some theory or piece of statistical evidence."
"And that scares you."
"Yes. I've spent every day of the past twenty years proving theories, statistics, ballistics, and forensic evidence to bury suspects and get justice for the victims. My life is defined by facts and order, but no one really knows me, has taken the tine to get to know me. I've never met anyone who has wanted to get to know me." He paused and took a deep breath. "And then six years ago, I met this amazing young woman at one of my seminars who turned my ordered life upside down. She pulled my head out of the microscope and it terrified me. What I feel for you scares me because-" his voice trailed off, and I could sense that once again, he was struggling to find the words.
"Because you can't fit it in an evidence kit and analyze it under the microscope? Gil, that's not how love works."
I felt him startle under my fingertips. "You love me?"
I silently cursed my tongue. I hadn't planned on telling him this tonight, not when he was so sleep deprived and fragile. But of course I always over talk around him and the words had just slipped out. "Yes, Gil, I love you. This shouldn't come as a big surprise to you. I told you months ago that I've always seen you as more than a boss, that I moved to Vegas for you-"
He rolled his head so that our gazes locked. "I'm fifteen years older than you-"
"Sixteen, actually, and I don't care."
"You could have any guy you want – someone like that paramedic Hank, young, strong-"
I snorted again. "You do remember why it didn't work out, right? He had another girlfriend?"
He winced. "It was insensitive of me to bring him up."
"Yes, it was, especially when I'm in bed with you."
"Sara-" there was a warning tone to his voice but I ignored it. We were finally talking about the elephant in the room and nothing was going to stop me now, unless he fell asleep in the middle of the conversation.
I slid down in the bed, dislodging his head on my lap, until we were face to face. "You, Gil Grissom, are the man I've loved for six years. I don't want anyone else. I understand a relationship with me is going to be difficult. You've been trying to teach me all these years about compartmentalizing as a way to survive this job and now it's time to see what I've learned. No one can know about us, or it could mean both of our jobs. I'm willing to take to the risk to be together. Question is, are you? I need to know if you've changed your mind from a couple of years ago when you said that you couldn't take the risk to be with me?"
His eyes widened in shock. "Wait, what?"
I sighed. "I heard you that day in the interrogation room, trying to get a confession from Dr. Lurie who murdered that nurse, Debbie, who looked so much like me. You said you could never take the risk to start a new life 'with her' – you were talking about me."
"Sara," he groaned, his hands coming up to cup my face. "I had no idea you heard me that day. So much was going on with me back then; it made me feel like such an old man that would be nothing but a burden to you if we were in a relationship."
I took a minute or two to consider his words. As much as they had hurt me back then, I did understand that we both had grown and worked through our own personal issues. "And now?"
He sighed. "I still have fears-"
"So do I, Gil. But I'm not going to let them hold me back. Not anymore, not after everything that's happened the past couple of months."
He drew me close and kissed me, soft, slow, but with an increasing passion that lit a fire under my skin. When he pulled away for air, I felt him smile against my cheek. "I do like kissing you."
When he lowered his lips to mine, I pulled away to tease him. "I really did bring you in here to get some sleep."
"Sleep is overrated," he breathed the words against my neck and nibbled an earlobe. "I just want to be clear, Sara, all those times you reached out and I rebuffed you – that was me, not you. You said once that you were trying to be my star pupil-"
I rolled my eyes, knowing that he couldn't see it from his current angle, but he would be able to hear the sarcasm in my voice. "Probably just trying to get your approval yet again, looking for validation in the wrong places, remember?"
He skated a hand down my face and ran his fingers through my curls. "You've always been more than a star pupil at one of my seminars to me-"
I smothered his words with my lips, stopping their flow. It was amazing that just twenty-four hours ago, I had wanted nothing more than for him to open up and talk to me. Now I just wanted him to shut up and make me feel things with his hands.
"If you're not going to sleep, perhaps we can think of something else to do?" I panted against him. "We still have some time before our shift starts."
I felt his grin against my cheek. "Did you have something in mind, CSI Sidle?"
I moved to his side and breathed the words into his ear, words from long ago, words from a case that we could now enact not as CSI's but lovers.
"Pin me down."