Author's Notes: Thank you to everyone, a hundred times over! Hope you keep reading and enjoying;)
Someone Else's Star
by Kristen Elizabeth
"People living deeply have no fear of death." – Anais Nin
He had one last thing he could do for her.
As soon as he felt reasonably able to operate a motor vehicle (and it said something about the severity of his binge that it took a day or so), Grissom drove himself to Sara's apartment. The whole way, he was torn between hoping she was home for the simple pleasure of seeing her face, and praying that she wasn't home, in case he saw more than he wanted to. Like her wedding ring. Or her husband.
Her car was missing from the lot, but he knocked on her door anyways. No answer. The package he'd brought with him was too big to slip under her door, so he took a calculated risk and left it propped up against the frame.
He stopped for a sandwich on his way back to his townhouse. Balancing the bag, a bottle of soda and his mail, Grissom let himself inside. He set the mail aside for later and sat down at the table to eat his lunch.
No sooner had he taken his first bite than he heard a noise in his bedroom. Something broke and very clearly he heard a muffled, "Shit!" Grissom froze. Very slowly, he set his sandwich down. Where was his service piece when he needed it?
Oh yeah. It was in the bedroom.
Cursing his own safety protocol, Grissom stood up from the table. Wiping his hands on his pants, he looked around for a weapon, any weapon. He settled on the kitchen knives. Grabbing the biggest one he owned, Grissom called out to the intruder.
"I'm armed. Come out with your hands up."
Of all the people in the world who could have broken into his house, the one who walked out of his bedroom, pointing his own gun at him, was the last person he would have expected.
"Gil." Matt Wilson pointed at the knife with the barrel of the gun. "Put that down and let's talk."
Her plan was to pack a bag, get in her car and just drive. It didn't matter where she ended up…California, Arizona, Mexico…it just mattered that she wouldn't be in Las Vegas.
Driving back from her last shift before her vacation time began, Sara couldn't help but think about the man she'd left at the altar for a second time. Was he already back in San Francisco? Should she eventually try to make contact with him, to apologize or better explain herself? Would he even want to listen? If their roles were reversed, she probably wouldn't.
Sara set those thoughts aside as she pulled up to her apartment. She would consider all the ramifications of her actions when she was at least a hundred miles away from her so-called life.
She noticed the package sitting at her door right away. A plain manila envelope with her name on it. No address. No postage. She'd already picked it up before she even thought about getting a pair of gloves or calling the bomb squad. Too late to be cautious, Sara opened the manila envelope as she entered her apartment.
Her keys dropped the floor. Inside, she found her navy-blue lace bra and a single sheet of paper.
She pulled out both. The bra, as predicted, held too many memories; she set it on her desk and scanned the paper.
Sara,
The most difficult thing that you can do is to watch the person you love love someone else. – Unknown
This still applies even if you've driven that person into someone else's arms. But Sara, you have to know that I will be happy for you. Eventually.
Set aside everything else, and you're still one of my dearest friends.
Gil
A tear drop blotted the ink letters making up his name. Another one fell. And then another. Sara lifted the paper up to her lips, like she could somehow capture and embrace whatever trace of himself he'd left on it.
The person you love. It was hard to misinterpret that. Grissom loved her. He loved her, but he'd admittedly pushed her towards Matt. Nothing the man ever did concerning her made sense. The random flirtations, the cold-shoulders, the mixed messages, the most incredible sex of her life immediately followed by the most excruciating morning-after.
It took her being 'married' for him to finally say the one thing that had remained unspoken throughout their twisted, confusing relationship.
And as furious as that fact made her, suddenly Sara knew she'd be making a stop on her way out of town.
She picked up her keys and headed out.
"You know, I get that you're into bugs. But all these butterflies…" Keeping the gun in his hand steady, Matt examined the walls of Grissom's apartment. "A little too Silence of the Lambs if you ask me."
Grissom's eyes never left the man who was holding him at gunpoint. "Actually that was Acherontia styx, the Death's-head moth."
Matt lifted his shoulders. "An insect by any other name. Oh, I'm sorry. Does that offend your specialty?" His voice hardened. "Too bad."
"I don't think you came here to discuss my specialty." He tore his stare away from Matt just long enough to locate where his knife had landed after he'd been forced to throw it aside. It was a good ten feet across the tile floor. Well out of range. "Which begs the question," Grissom went on. "Why are you here when you should be on your honeymoon?"
Something in that question fanned Matt's spark of anger into a full-fledged fire. "My honeymoon?" he spat out. "Didn't you learn in any of your training that you shouldn't mock the man holding a gun to your head?"
Grissom frowned, genuinely confused. "I don't understand." He wet his lips. "You got what you came here for, didn't you? She's yours now. What do you want with me?"
"I want to know…" Matt's glare intensified. "What is it about you that's so fucking irresistible, the woman I love would leave me for you, not once…but twice?"
Confusion melted a little under the heat of hope. "You're not making any sense. Why don't you put the gun down and we can…"
"You're nothing special!" Matt shouted, cutting him off. "You're old enough to be her father! You make her miserable! And yet…she chooses you. Would you please make some goddamn sense out of that for me, because I can't wrap my brain around it!"
Grissom dropped his stare; his eyes darted back and forth. Sara had left Matt. Sara had chosen him. Sara wasn't married?
"What do you want me to say?" he asked Matt a moment later. "I accepted my shortcomings a long time ago. Sara, however, wasn't as quick to catch on."
"What you do to her is wrong." The man shook his head. "You lead her on, you make her jump through hoops…climb stairs...but you never meet her halfway. You make her hang on for more. It's sick!" He thumped his chest with the gun. "I offered her everything! A home, a family…love that doesn't come with a price tag. But what did she do? She turned away from me. Again." Matt moved closer to Grissom. "Because of you."
"You left out the part where you insured her life for a quarter of a million dollars," Grissom said calmly.
Matt's arm faltered. "What the hell does that have to do with anything? Sara and I both agreed to take care of each other."
"But you're the only one who put the wheels in motion."
"Yeah. You know why the policy on me was never drawn up? Because one night she got a call from you, packed a bag and walked out of our life." Matt shook his head. "Just like that. But I did the right thing. I stepped back. I gave her six years to figure everything out."
It was funny how quickly Grissom found himself slipping into investigative mode, even at gunpoint. "So, what happened?"
Matt didn't seem to be aware of the fact that he'd gone from interrogator to interrogated. "In six years, I never met a woman who made me feel the way she did." He paused, looking down at the gun in his hand. "You know…this isn't me. I'm not one of those psychos she helps put away. I just have to know." Matt moved the gun closer to Grissom's head. "Why you and not me?"
He'd maintained his calm up until that point, but the cold barrel of a gun less than an inch from your temple had a way of shattering even the coolest of facades. "I don't know," Grissom replied honestly. "I've tried to figure it out myself. I can't."
"That's not good enough," Matt decided. He cocked the gun; Grissom flinched at the metallic snap. "You have one minute."
But he never got a chance to time anything. Just then, there was a knock on Grissom's door.
His car was in the driveway, so she knew he was home. But, Sara realized with a sinking heart, after three knocks, it was obvious he wouldn't be answering the door. She had a terrible vision of him standing on the other side, watching her through the peephole, silently waiting for her to go away.
Her anger with him burned her throat. This was one conversation he wasn't going to freeze himself out of.
Sara grabbed the doorknob, testing it. To her amazement, and slight concern, it opened. She took a breath. "Grissom…I'm coming in. Whether you like it or not."
His home was the same organized chaos she remembered. But Grissom was nowhere to be seen. An unwrapped sandwich and an unopened bottle of soda sat on the table. Maybe he was in his room. Or the bathroom. Suddenly Sara was all too aware of the enormity of her trespass.
"Hello? Grissom?"
He appeared around the edge of a dividing wall; his right side rested against it, but his body was too stiff to be natural. "Sara," he said in an eerily quiet voice. "This isn't a good time."
She spread her hands. "When is it ever a good time? But you don't get to leave a note like that on my door and expect nothing to change."
"Sara," he said again, this time with an edge of desperation. "Please go. Please."
"Why? Because it would make your life neater if I just went away and pretended that nothing ever happened between us?" She shook her head. "No. I'm sick of giving you an out every time we talk about something serious. I walk away, I cut you off…I'm not doing it anymore. You can just keep holding that wall up because I am not going anywhere until we…" Her rant died when Grissom moved forward, revealing the man standing behind him, pressing a gun between his shoulder blades.
As fear took hold of every part of her body, Matt maneuvered Grissom further into the living room. "Now, Sara…" Matt began. "Don't be mad."
"Matt," she managed to whisper. "What are you doing?"
"The same thing you are," he replied. "Trying to talk to Gil here." He gave her a knowing look. "He's not much of a talker, though, is he?"
Sara was afraid to move lest she startle whatever psychotic spirit had taken over Matt's body. She looked at Grissom. "It depends…on what you want him to talk about."
"Oh, I'm just trying to get him to tell me why…" Matt stopped. "Wait. Why should I bother asking him when you're here now!" Delighted with his new plan, Matt moved around Grissom's body, keeping the gun carefully trained on him. "Here's the question, honey. What is it about him that keeps you coming back for more?"
She ran her tongue over her lips. "This isn't you."
"Of course it's not me," he said impatiently. "The only experience I have with these things is hours and hours of action movies." He looked at the weapon in his hand. "Can't thank Gil enough, though, for leaving it unlocked in his top drawer."
"Why are you doing this?"
Matt poked Grissom with the gun. "Why don't you tell her?"
Ignoring everything else, even the threat to his life, Grissom locked eyes with Sara. "He wants to know why you love me."
"Because you're rarely at a loss for words, Sara," Matt reminded her. "Oh, and you have one minute."
The part of her that still loved the handsome, kind therapist she'd met so many years ago truly didn't believe that Matt was capable of hurting a fly. But the evidence was right in front of her, cold and deadly and pointing straight at Grissom's heart.
She had one minute to explain her feelings for Gil Grissom. A lifetime probably wouldn't have been long enough.
"Matt." Sara paused. "What do you want me to say? He's the first thought I have when I wake up, and the last one before I fall asleep. He…makes me a better scientist, a better criminalist. A better person. He can cripple me with a single word, and light up my entire world with a smile." Fear spilled over her cheeks. "He's a gorgeous mess."
Grissom swallowed. "Sara…"
She brushed the tears away, but more came. "If you kill him…you kill me. And you're not a killer once, much less twice."
Her words must have made some impact; the arm holding the gun faltered a bit.
"I am so sorry that I've hurt you," Sara told Matt. "I was selfish. I used you to forget about him and that is unforgivable. But it's not his fault. Don't punish him because of what I've done to you."
She could feel Grissom watching her as she approached Matt. He let her get right up next to him. "Please give me the gun," she whispered.
Matt turned his face towards her, touching his forehead to her temple. "I love you, Sara," he sobbed.
"Shh," Sara soothed. "It's okay." Her hand covered his trembling fingers.
"I'm sorry." He shook his head back and forth. "I'm so sorry."
A single shot cracked through the air, shattering everything.
To Be Continued