Chapter Seventeen
Friday, Late Afternoon
Sara paused in the hospital corridor, tightening her grip on the plastic handles of a large shopping bag, drawing in a long breath. She told herself there was no reason to feel so uncertain. What was so odd about visiting an injured co-worker in the hospital? People did it all the time. It was a courtesy, a thoughtful gesture, nothing more.
Still, she wasn't certain if her arrival would be welcomed. This was Grissom after all – proud, usually preferring to maintain a certain distance even from the people he worked with most closely. He would probably think that being viewed as something less than completely capable and in control would somehow diminish his standing with his subordinates.
And then there was that whole issue of motivation. Despite the outward appearance of simple friendship, Sara admitted that she still harbored feelings for the man that went deeper than mere camaraderie. Beneath her outward acceptance that he would never reciprocate lay the irrational but persistent hope that he did, in fact, feel something for her, that only his sense of honor and fairness, his knowledge that a relationship between superior and subordinate could never be one of equal standing, compelled him to deny his feelings. Did she on some level hope that this close call would provide the impetus he needed to set aside that supposed denial?
Keep this up, and you're going to talk yourself out of going in there, she thought sourly. And she raised a hand to tap lightly on the door before swinging it open just far enough to peer around the edge. "May I come in?" she asked when Grissom turned his head to look toward the door.
He waved her inside with a hint of a smile that became a questioning lift of one eyebrow as his gaze dropped to the large bag she carried.
"The gang sends their greetings," Sara said brightly, quietly damning the nervousness that made her voice rise in pitch. She tactfully refrained from commenting on the bruise discoloring one side of his face, instead concentrating on pulling out the contents of the shopping bag. She handed him the greeting cards in colorful envelopes several of the techs had asked her to pass along when they found out she planned to visit. "Those are from Greg and Archie and Bobby – some of the others, too." When he didn't immediately open any of them, she pulled the rolling tray-table closer to the bed and deposited a stack of printed material on it. "Catherine said you'd probably be bored by now, so we raided your office for all the journals and magazines you haven't had time to read yet. And we all know how you love classical music and opera…" To the stack of offerings she added a portable CD player and a collection of CDs.
His smile looked genuine as he said simply, "Thank you, Sara."
She returned the smile and hefted the bag again. Keep it light, she thought. Aloud she cautioned, "Ah, but you haven't seen everything yet. Now, I figured the hospital probably has rules against patients having pets in their rooms, so…" She produced a black plush spider the size of a dinner plate with ridiculously staring yellow eyes and a stitched-on goofy grin. She plopped the toy squarely on his stomach. "He's a little bigger than your favorite tarantula," she acknowledged with a grin, "but I promise he doesn't eat much."
Grissom caught the spider between his hands when it started to topple off his midsection. He lifted it higher for a better look, and for a moment Sara wondered if he thought she was completely crazy for selecting such an immature gift. "He's actually rather – cute," he said with a crooked smile. "Thank you."
Sara sat down in the chair next to the bed and leaned back, her hands tapping a nervous pattern on the chair arms. "I had to go to six different shops before I found him," she told him. "Second choice was a two-foot caterpillar, but it didn't have nearly as much personality as Harry there. And it was a really putrid shade of green."
"I like the spider."
"I got a puppy for Nick – a Golden Retriever. He once told me they had a Golden when he was growing up, that of all the kids, it followed him around wherever he went."
Grissom's attention sharpened. "You've seen Nick?"
"No." Sara frowned and stared down at her hands as they scrubbed against her knees. "With any luck, I'll be able to stop by his room after this. The nurse said Garza's interviewing him now. After that, I thought it might help to see a friendly face."
"Yeah."
Sara looked up then and forced a smile, but she couldn't seem to relax the tension in her shoulders, and her gaze kept flitting away from his after only the briefest contact. "So, how are they treating you? Or maybe I should ask how you're treating them."
Grissom allowed himself to be distracted from thoughts of their beleaguered friend – at least on the surface. Who knew what went on behind that impassive exterior? "Considering the fact that hospitals are unpleasant places to be in general," he replied neutrally, "I suppose it's not so bad. And," he added wryly, "I haven't growled at a single nurse yet."
"I'm impressed. Of course, it's in your best interest to be good," she pointed out. "They definitely have the upper hand in this balance of power. All those needles… And I hear that cold water sponge baths are not something to look forward to."
He answered that particular remark with a vague scowl.
Sara mustered a smile. "So, tell me, is it just a cliché, or is hospital food really hideous?"
Grissom laced his fingers over his stomach and glanced down when he found Harry still occupied that space. His hands ended up resting on the spider's soft fur. "Actually, I don't have much basis for an opinion," he said. "So far, all they've allowed me to eat is some dry toast and a fruit puree that was oddly reminiscent of baby food."
Sara's chin lifted and her smile turned almost to a smirk. "Uh-huh," she said with slow deliberation. She leaned slightly forward, one elbow on the chair arm, her chin resting on her fist. "And you would know about the consistency of baby food – how? Even your phenomenal memory can't possibly stretch all the way back to infancy."
"Actually," he explained calmly, "when I was thirteen I had a mishap on a bicycle and broke my jaw. I couldn't eat solid food for four weeks. I got tired of milkshakes and chicken broth after the first three days, so my mother started giving me baby food for variety." His direct and unflinching gaze dared her to laugh at his tale of adolescent misfortune. So, of course, she did just that.
"I'm sure that made quite an impression in the junior high lunch room," she mused. "Everyone else had their cafeteria meatloaf, homemade tuna sandwiches, or PB and J, and then there's you with –" Another laugh escaped her twitching lips. "— baby food!"
His gaze moved past her, seeming to focus somewhere beyond the room's four walls. "No," he countered slowly. "At school it was mashed potatoes and Jell-O."
Sara rolled her eyes and looked away. She tried valiantly to banish the image of a young Gil Grissom, probably as intensely inquisitive and focused as he was now, slurping down strained peas and carrots and diligently cataloguing every taste, smell, and texture. "What kind of drugs are they giving you?" she asked suddenly. "They must be pretty weird, because you never talk about personal stuff."
A brief lift of eyebrows and a palms-up gesture silently conveyed "oh, well," after which he deftly changed the subject by asking about their progress on the investigation.
She filled him in, and the last of her uncertainty about coming dissipated in the familiar exercise of question-and-answer and examining various suppositions and theories. Nor was their discussion limited to the fiasco on Harper Ridge. They had verbally dissected half a dozen pending cases when the phone cut through their musings.
Grissom fumbled with the all-in-one control, which also housed the phone receiver, wedged between the bed rails and the edge of the mattress. When he answered, he listened for only a moment before a brief "thank you" as he disconnected the device.
"That was a nurse named Tricia with a message for you," he said, his tone carefully neutral. "Garza just left."
To be continued…
A/N: This scene was not intended to be a shipper's delight, but it's rather difficult not to acknowledge that particular dynamic when dealing with Sara and Grissom. This is as shippy as I get -- which will be either a disappointment or a relief, depending on your preference.