Title: Wash Away Part Eight
Early July, 06
Note: Thanks again to everyone who is reading this and also those who are reviewing. I do appreciate it. Also, thanks to L84AD8WMI for your advice on twins. It is very helpful.
Entering her small beach side home, Sara eased herself onto her sofa and leaned back on the cushions. She slid her shoes off before propping her legs on the coffee table. Placing both hands on her belly, she marveled at the fact that she had left her home thinking there was one baby and returned knowing there were two. One boy, possibly two boys or one boy and a girl?
Her cellphone rang, and she stared at the offending object. Picking it up, she stared at the name and smiled warmly as she answered.
"Hi, Brass."
"Hey kiddo, I almost dropped the phone when you actually answered." Brass pushed his toast away and looked across the table at Grissom who was listening intently. "I've missed you, kiddo, how are you?"
"First, Grissom, now you. I miss you all too, Brass." Sara admitted as she closed her eyes.
She was okay after her doctor had checked her out throughly; ultrasounds, blood work. He had even apologized after admitting that twins could add more weight to her small frame. She would have laughed, but she did not find him at all amusing. She had questioned him about how they had missed it on the first ultrasound. Surely, they would have seen both babies? She was informed rather briskly that sometimes one twin lies behind the other and the sonographer can miss it. She decided at the moment to call Dr. Wallace and request her opinion.
"I'm fine." She said after several minutes of silence had elapsed. "What have you been up to lately? Keeping Vegas safe for the criminals?"
Brass chuckled. "You said you spoke with Grissom? How did that go?" He winced at the dagger Grissom shot his way. His expression altered again as Sara spoke.
"I was mad at first. I suppose either Warrick or Nick have been giving away my number? Is that how you got it?" Sara hesitated,and then her eyes snapped open. "Grissom gave you my number. Is he sitting there with you?"
"He's worried about you." Brass felt like crap. This was the first time he had spoken with Sara in months and, now, he was afraid that she would not trust him anymore.
Sara sighed. "It's okay, Jim." She rubbed her belly and wondered if at least one of her babies would have blue eyes. "Tell him that I'm fine and I'm not as mad at him anymore."
"You could tell him that yourself." Brass suggested. He held up a hand as Grissom eagerly reached towards the phone.
"Tell him that I'll call him in a few days."
Sara actually felt good about her decision. Grissom was who he was, even if he had been callous and blind for a short period of time. She could not erase all of the years and let some freak win everything.
"Tell him that I'll talk to him on my terms and when I'm ready."
She heard Brass relay the information and Grissoms eager response.
Exhausted fromt he short exchange she said with sincerity. "Thanks for calling me, Jim, and thanks for caring."
After they said bye, Sara curled up on the sofa for a nap.
Vegas, 06
A week crept by and Grissom wondered if today would be the day that Sara called him. When another week elapsed, he decided she was not serious when she told Brass that she would. So, when the ringing of his cellphone woke him up one afternoon two and half weeks after Brass spoke with Sara, she was the last person he thought would be on the other end of the line.
"Grissom." He growled into the reciever.
"I called at a bad time." The voice on the other end of the line caused his eyes to fly open and he sat up, semi conscious of the sheets sliding off his hips and to the floor as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed.
"Sara? No, uhm, no, this is a good time to call me. My alarm was set to go off any second." Grissom glanced at his clock radio and realized that it had gone off sometime in the last hour and he must have shut it off while still asleep.
"Well, I know that I told Brass to tell you that I would call in few days, but, I've been very busy."
Sara's excuse sounded lame, even to her own ears. The truth was she had picked the phone up to call him a dozen times, only to talk herself out of it and convince herself that she would call him the next day. "I've been writing a book." Sara told him while wondering if he cared what she had been doing with her time. "I'm almost finished with it. You know how obsessed I can be when I set my mind to something."
He did know that. It was the reason she had shut him out of her life for so long and was the one making all the calls now. He did not say any of that, however, and instead went with his second thought.
"Warrick told us that you were writing a fiction crime novel." He admitted, and then added. "I'll have to read it. I'm sure that with all your expertise in this field it will be very interesting."
"I'll send you a copy when it is published." Sara said, as she flipped through the manuscript that she was about to send her publisher, who happened to be an old friend of hers from when she lived in San Francisco years ago. She knew that it generally took months to get a book published, but when her friend Alyssa, had read the rough draft Sara mailed to her she had jumped on it and pushed the idea through to her publishing company.
"Autographed?" Grissom asked in a light tone and was rewarded with a soft chuckle from Sara.
"Of course." Sara assured him and then could not stop herself from asking. "Would you like it personalized?"
The silence on the other end of the phone was intense. Sara had not intended to make the comment flirtatious to Grissom, but somehow it had felt like the natural thing to say and it was out of her lips before she could censor her mind. It should have been a simple question, but nothing between the two of them had ever been simple.
"That would be nice, Sara, thank you." Grissom tried to take the flirtation out of the equation, knowing that Sara had not intended for her question to be so layered with ineundo.
He heard the relieved sigh on the other end of the line.
"You've been keeping yourself busy, Grissom?" Small talk. They had never really been good at small talk even when they were in the midst of their relationship. Their conversations usually drifted into deep discussions based on a simple comment. It was with some familiarity and pleasure that this time was no exception.
They spent the next hour discussing his last case and how another child had been the perpetrator of the crime.
"I never get used to those cases."
Grissom heard the sorrow in Sara's voice as she spoke.
"I can't believe how many cases we have investigated that resulted in the child being the killer. What kind of situation can make a child become something so horrible?"
She thought back on her own life. Although she had experienced more than any child should ever have to experience something in her genetic make up had prevented her from taking on the role of abuser. She felt a light flutter and touched the spot. She vowed that she would never harm a hair on her own children.
Grissom must have been thinking along the same lines, because when he spoke, his voice was understanding. "I think that some people are genetically predisposed to violence and if they are subjected to violence, then it increases their odds disapportionately."
The silence that ensued was nervewracking for Grissom. He wondered if he had said something wrong.
"Sara? I didn't bore you to sleep did I?"
TBC
