Chapter 10

Sara folded her leg under her and sat on the end of the sofa closest to Dr. Case.

Taking her seat the doctor began, "I believe you had some homework for me."

"I didn't write them down, is that okay?" Sara nervously bit her lower lip. She was used to being the star pupil, but calling the assignment homework made her anxious that she'd done it wrong.

"It is okay for the session, but I would like you to journal them. Have you been keeping a journal like I asked?"

"I tried, it's hard, I work a lot and then when I get home it's sleep, eat…no time for journaling."

"Sara, if you don't make time to nourish your emotional self I can't help you. If you write out the things that you are learning, it will be easier to refer back to them and practice them when you really need them. Okay, let's hear it, ten things you get out of seeing yourself as broken."

Sara seemed to stumble over her words for a few moments and then progressed, "I'm absolved. It isn't my fault."

"What isn't?" Dr. Case made a note on a pad, something she did rarely during Sara's sessions.

"Everything. Nothing. Nothing is my fault if I'm broken. If a computer is missing a chip you can't blame the computer for not running the program."

"So you consider yourself a machine."

A dark eyebrow arched in response. "I think I try to be. Seems easier."

"Machines don't want. You do. Tell me what you want."

"I…I thought I was supposed to tell you what I gain from…"

Dr. Case cut her off. "That was the assignment, and we'll return to it, this is a fresh question. What do you want? Off the cuff, from your heart, doesn't have to make sense."

Her eyes closed. "I want to smell cut grass and know that someone I love cut it for me. I want a puppy but I can't have one because I'm never-"

"Just what you want Sara, no rationalizations."

"His arms around me. His love. To look across the breakfast table and watch him read the paper while he plays with his eggs. To go to work and find out that no one had done anything horrible to another human being just for one god damned day." Sara's fingers dug into her arms and made the flesh around them white. "To feel like a full person and not like I'm constantly searching for notes on how to pass as one."

"And what you gain from being broken, the second thing?"

The gear switching nearly threw her but she was starting to see the pattern. "I get to not risk rejection and loss."

"Doesn't everything turn to loss?"

"See answer number one. That loss isn't my fault, because if I'm damaged I have no culpability." Sara smiled. She was in on the game now. She liked the feeling of control it gave her.

"So you're more interested in blame than happiness?"

"Trick question." Sara was on the edge of her seat now, really digging in, this had stopped being therapy and started being a puzzle for her to solve.

"How so?"

"Because I'm incapable of happiness, so all that's left is placement of blame."

"What if Grissom walked in to work tonight and told you that whatever the reason was for the wall he put up between you was, it had vanished. What if he took you in his arms?"

She shook her head in the negative but kept smiling. "Couldn't happen."

"Anything is possible. Close your eyes again. Picture Grissom the last time you saw him."

Sara saw herself in the chair in his office, his hand on her wrist, her pulse racing at his touch. She described the scene to Dr. Case.

"Instead of dropping your wrist what if he had held it to his lips and kissed it?"

Sara's lower lip caught in her teeth as she watched the scene finish differently in her mind. She felt the tickle of his facial hair on her palm and her eyes flashed open. "He wouldn't."

Dr. Case was amused, "What if he did?"

"He just, you don't know him, he wouldn't."

"Suspend rationalization. No reality, just fantasy. What if he did?"

Her eyes closed again, she pictured his mouth at her wrist. "My heart would burst."

"Would you be happy?"

"God yes."

"So you are capable. Who is stopping your happiness in this case? Where does your ever important blame lie?"

"Me. Because I know it can't happen, so I base my happiness on things that aren't possible."

"You believe it can't happen, you don't know that. What do you think makes it impossible?"

Sara took her time to think this through. She splayed her hands in front of her. "He's my supervisor."

"Close your eyes again. Return to the first scenario. He holds your wrist in his fingers, taking your pulse. You understand that if he made this more intimate you would be happy. Possibly, conceivably on the road to the life you've said you would like to try. Am I correct so far?"

"Yes, but…"

"Tell him you quit."

"What?" Sara's face was incredulous, her eyes wide.

"In the fantasy. Close your eyes, feel his fingers, see his face." The doctor watched Sara as she lost herself in the visualization. "Good, now, tell him, tell him that you're quitting the lab."

"I don't know where I'd go."

"You're removing the wall you believe stands between you and happiness so complete that you yourself said your heart would burst. Finding another job would surely be worth that much joy. Tell him."

She did. Sara saw herself looking into Grissom's worried eyes and saying the words. "I have to quit."

He let go of her hand as if burned by it. He shook his head, "Sara, I'm sorry. I don't know how to… be supportive and keep the line between supervisor and friend."

"I don't want a line between us. I want you. I want to be happy."

"The lab needs you Sara."

"I don't give a crap about the lab."

He stepped further away his voice was a caution, "Sara."

"No, not this time Grissom." She saw herself rise to shorten the distance between them, "You can't be with me because of work then I choose you. I'll find another job."

"Don't do this. I'm not who you want me to be."

Sara opened her eyes slowly. "It doesn't work."

"Why not?"

"Who knows? He's as screwed up as I am. Maybe more."

"But you could fix him, if only he'd let you, right?"

"No. I don't want him to change, I don't need him to be anything but what he is."

"Let me get clear. The one source of happiness that you can find is a man who is in your perception screwed up. Why do you want to be with someone who is carrying so much of his own baggage? Where's the benefit?"

"Maybe that he won't accuse me of being messed up, he won't leave because I'm broken if he's just as bad."

"There are many wounded souls out there, you meet them every day. How did this one become so important to you?"

"When I first met Gil he was an enigma. You know, here was this guy who did this gruesome job but he was so excited about all the little things, the small processes that fit together he made you forget that the big picture was something gut wrenching. He was one of the first guys I'd met that was smarter than I was and instead of being wrapped up in some science fiction world he was like…have you read Oliver Sacks book, An Anthropologist On Mars? The title always made me think of him. He doesn't so much want to be a part of society as study it, like an ant colony."

"I can see the attraction."

"It's funny how things happen without you realizing. When I first came to Vegas it was so different. He was in a good mood unless something put him in a bad one, now it seems like it's the other way around. We used to smile, he used to make me laugh, I used to catch myself singing while I worked. It's been a long time since that's happened. He even told me I was beautiful one time. Now he barely knows I'm there unless I get blown up, or I'm fainting in his office."