Chapter 29
"You moved Sara to day shift? Are you kidding me? I've been asking for that move for how long and you just hand it to her? Gil?" Catherine had a full head of steam but Grissom barely acknowledged her presence. He was literally and figuratively knee deep in evidence.
"I can't believe you're being this obvious with your favorites. What is it? Is it so I can keep doing your paperwork? Tell me Gil."
"You never asked to be moved to day shift Catherine. You asked to supervise day shift, and that's not my call. I made the recommendation, that's all I can do."
It was almost laughable how you could see the wheels turning in her mind. "But now that you're the assistant lab director you could promote me."
"Acting. Acting assistant director. Catherine, you seem to be getting pretty chummy with Ecklie lately, take this up with him."
"I don't understand what they were thinking making you acting A.S. anyway. And who's supposed to do your job while you're doing that? Me?"
Grissom shook his head and squinted. Catherine could ignore logic with the best of them. If what you had to say didn't fit with her preferred line of thinking she just reframed the topic. It was surprising to him that she was able to set that aside when she was working a case. Well, usually able to set that aside. Occasionally able.
"You're still on days for the time being, so that seems unlikely. Would you mind stepping out of my light?" he made a shoo-ing motion.
Exasperated she threw up her hands and huffed out of the room, leaving Grissom to his work. His quiet time was short lived.
"Hey man, did you really let Sara go?" Nick bent to get a better look at the plexiglass box filled with gel Grissom was standing in.
"I agreed to her request to move to days. Yes." His tone was firm. This was not a topic on which he intended to elaborate.
"I don't get it. Why'd she want to go?"
In his mind Grissom heard this as 'What did you do now?' he fixed Nick with an icy glare, "You'd have to ask her. Hand me that cement mix would you?"
Nick had complied and left, his bosses non-verbal cues being sufficient to advise him that the answers weren't going to be found with him and the questions were falling on irritated ears.
As it so often did, the deeper Grissom got into the physical aspect of lab work, the further his mind wandered. He thought about his recent time with Selina and how they always seemed to be a step off from one another. He zigged when she zagged, never lining up. In the letters from the past year he had begun to talk about symmetry. He would discuss paintings he'd seen, symphonies he had attended, or books read and without realizing it had always mentioned the equilibrium where he had expected things to be skewed.
Looking for Sara as Sara was reaching out to him electronically.
The thought zipped by him like a fly too quick to catch. In it's wake was a vague imprint of missing something, a phantom appendage. Working in the lab with Sara was always easy. Thinking about Sara, feeling about Sara, those things were impassioned and thorny but moving beside her with a common purpose always brought cherished balance.
Clearing a way for the cement he slipped his hand into the gel, the warm closure of the stuff at his fingers once again brought Sara to the forefront of his mind. He considered the times he had held her hand in his. She had strong, talented fingers but when they curled against his own they were small and tender. He had never considered the masculinity of his own hand until he looked at it in propinquity with the femininity of Sara's.