The next morning, the entire team was sitting around the table in the conference room. This shift had begun before it was scheduled, and likewise, it had run over as well. They had shared one case all night, making their best attempt to piece it all together. This meeting was serving to tie up just the last few loose ends before everyone went home for the day.
Catherine looked at the rest of them. She shook her head slightly. "Looks like we've got the husband nailed. Guess he didn't like playing second string to her old flame."
"Who would?" Warrick asked her sadly, obviously hinting at more than the case. His marriage was weighing on him heavily. Tina detested the all the extra time he put in at the lab, just as she hated him talking about his colleagues. Catherine had been there the night before to help him through the latest rough patch. She was not about to let him give up on himself or his marriage easily. There may have been a time she wanted more, but she truly only ever wanted to see Warrick happy.
Greg stared down at the table. "So, he was jealous of the other guy. Kinda figures. He just took it too far."
Grissom tilted his head as he quoted, "Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty. François de la Rochefoucauld. He doubted she truly loved him and he fell prey to the madness."
Nick scoffed, "What was there to be jealous of? That other guy wasn't an old flame. He told us that they were nothing more than friends. What did the husband get out of killing her anyway? She's dead. She certainly can't love him now."
Sara took her chance to throw in a quote of her own. "Jealousy, that dragon which slays love under the pretence of keeping it alive. Havelock Ellis. Afraid to lose the love, he killed her. By doing so, he believed the love they shared would be eternal." She grunted disapprovingly and sarcastically added, "Their love would live on happily ever after."
"Like a fairy tale? 'Happily ever after?' Only, she's dead?" Nick asked. "You've never struck me as the type to believe in a fairy tale romance, Sara." He eyed her skeptically.
"There is no such thing," Sara replied cynically. A tilt of her chin gave her an air of defiance. "Happiness and love are entirely subjective. They're different to each and every person. Love is only what you perceive it to be at any given moment in your life. It changes as you go... as you change."
Grissom observed her from across the table as his eyes narrowed in disbelief. Sara caught the look and quickly glanced away. He looked hurt and uncertain at her comments, and Sara was unable to hold the contact. She knew her true emotions would betray her at any given moment.
"So, you're saying...?" Catherine asked quizzically. Her eyebrows rose involuntarily as she stole a glance at both Grissom and Sara.
"You believe what you need to believe to get yourself through each day of your life... be it love... or the denouncement of such. You see what you want to make yourself feel your needs are fulfilled at a certain point in your life." Sara merely shrugged her shoulders nervously as she shifted around in her seat.
The entire room fell utterly silent.
Grissom walked dejectedly into his apartment. Sighing loudly, he dropped his briefcase and keys on the coffee table. He kicked his shoes off and dropped onto the couch. He closed his eyes tightly trying to shut out the light.
He mind clouded of images of how much life had changed from one day to the next. He had professed his love to Sara, and approximately thirty-four hours later he was contemplating the harsh reality of being crushed. Grissom was barely able to rationalize the feelings he was having. Was this the way Sara felt each time he had made some off-handed comment to her? Did he deserve what she said?
A loud noise startled Grissom from his thoughts. He sprung up to a sitting position on the couch, squinting towards the kitchen. She stood over the counter stirring some concoction in a mixing bowl. Intent on putting more ingredients into the bowl, Sara never even acknowledged Grissom's presence.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, startled, with a hint of anger in his voice. He had been so preoccupied with his thoughts that he had not even noticed her in the townhouse when he had arrived.
"I'm making breakfast," she replied simply. Sara ignored his foul mood. It had been a long night, and she assumed he just needed a break. "I thought it might be nice to—"
"No, you know very well that I'm not asking you what you're doing in my kitchen. I'm asking you what you're doing here at all," he stated rather bluntly. His tone was demanding and accusatory.
Sara took a step back from the bar and wiped her hands on a towel. Her mind was reeling, thinking of anything, any reason he had to be angry with her. It had been a long night filled with an even harder case, but it had been solved. Hell, she even admitted to herself that she had actually done a good job.
Finally, after scrutinizing everything from the night and searching his face, she found her voice. "What's wrong?" she asked innocently. The look she received made her shrink back against the stove. Grissom was certainly angry at her for something.
That question drove him over the edge. "How dare you insinuate that you have no idea what I'm talking about. 'What's wrong?' you ask." He waited for a response. Seeing only her eyes narrow and her mouth open just a fraction, he continued, "You sat there in front of the entire team tonight and spoke of love and happiness as if it is a curse... of how you don't believe there really is such a thing... of how life is nothing more than a series of moments stung together—"
"—to make you feel complete – to give you the false belief that life is perfect so you can continue moving through each day," Sara interrupted him. "Yes, I know what I said."
"Why, Sara?"
"Why? You're actually asking me that?" Sara shook her head. A nervous giggle escaped her lips. Was he even listening to himself? It was then that Sara realized he really had believed what she had said. The look he had given her at the time actually made sense now. He had not been faking it at all. "Gris..."
She walked around the bar and leaned on the edge of it, staring deep into his eyes. Sara crossed her arms in front of her chest in a slight defensive position. "You expect me to stop being the cynical Sara that everyone is used to, begin reciting love quotes, gush about romance novels and how there is one true love in life and that I've found mine?"
"What are you saying?" His mind was following her logic, but it certainly did not want to believe it. Grissom's resentment had replaced the rational part of his brain.
"I'm saying that I can't stop being the person that I've been for the past six years and expect people not to see it. You and I have had a very strange working relationship to say the least. The team has seen us go from friendly to barely functional to practically non-existent to ending somewhere around semi-functional. If, suddenly, that changes to nearly groping each other at work, you can't tell me people won't take notice."
The hurt in his eyes was melting slowly. He really had believed she had used her chance at work to throw his love back in his face when he could not respond in the least. Somehow, he was finding what she said understandable. Sara had a point, even if he had chosen not to allow himself to see it at first.
He eyed his shoes tossed beside the coffee table. He desperately needed a distraction. His hurt and anger no longer felt justified, and Grissom began to question himself. This is what he most feared – losing himself, not being able to separate the woman he loved from the woman he worked with.
"Grissom, listen to me," Sara pleaded, "If we want to make this work, we're going to have to trust each other implicitly. If we plan to keep it hidden, we're going to have to keep work and home separate. So, between the trust and keeping work and home separate, we're going to have to understand that we can't hold each other accountable for everything we say there."
Sara had purposefully made sure she had been accusatory of him when she spoke. It was obvious to her that Grissom was feeling insecure. The last thing she wanted was to make him more defensive, as if she was threatening him.
Their eyes met across the room. Grissom felt the weight of the world on his shoulders at that moment. He knew Sara saw the insecurity. He wallowed more in his self-conscious feelings knowing that he could not expect her to tiptoe around him constantly. It should be enough for him that she was there with him and had stayed by him through many years of uncertainty.
In his worst times, no matter what personal turmoil she was going through at the time, she had never let him go. She could have just left Vegas and him behind to stew in the mess he had made of his life. Instead, she had chosen the harder road of being with him every day waiting for the moment he made a decision. And, here she was, still waiting on him to move again. He was uncertain that he could ever give her enough – give her what she needed and deserved in life.
It had not been enough to call her to Vegas and leave her never really knowing the reason he had called. It had never been enough for him to keep toying with her emotions for his own selfish desires to have her near him. It had not been enough just to choose her. It was not enough to invite her to leave clothes at his place. I would only ever be enough when he left their future up to her.
His heart was hers to break. He would give her that. He would lay his insecurities down and let her make the next decision. She deserved that. He had called the shots for so long in their sordid relationship. Now, it was her time to plot their course.
"What do you want me to do, Sara?" he asked quietly.
"I want you to trust me," she answered meekly.
"I've told you before that I trust you." He looked away, unable to look into her eyes for fear that she saw the fear in them.
Her eyes remained locked onto him. "What happened today doesn't make me feel trusted. I... I feel like I'm still on the outside. I need you to know that I'm not going anywhere. I haven't gone after all these years. I never gave up. I'm not going anywhere. You have to just trust that I'm not going to hurt you."
"After all these years..."
"Gris, I'm not going to wake up tomorrow and think this isn't where I want to be. I'm going to wake up in your arms and feel the most secure I've ever felt. I'm going to wake up and look into your eyes and know it's all I need."
He looked back up and met her eyes. He watched a lone tear slide down her cheek. "I need to know what you want me to do."
"Love me," she replied simply.
"I do love you." Grissom stood from the couch and crossed the room. He cupped the side of her face as his thumb brushed away the next tear that escaped her eye.
"And, I love you." Sara unfolded her arms and reached for his hand that was on the side of her face.
She pulled his hand in front of her lips and kissed his palm tenderly before wrapping her fingers around it. Grissom tightened his grip on her hand and pulled their intertwined hands to his chest while he reached out with his other hand to pull her against him. Their eyes remained locked on each other until her head rested on his shoulder.
"Where do we go from here?" he murmured into her hair.
"Well, I say we skip breakfast, and you hold me until we fall asleep."
Grissom felt her lips curve into a smile against his neck. Sara's free arm snaked up around his back and hugged him tightly. Their bodies molded together, clinging to each other for support.
"Do you want to tell people about us?" he asked, realizing that their conversation was not yet over.
"Not right now. I'm not ready for the scrutiny, the looks, the remarks, the confrontation, or the repercussions. Let's just enjoy this for a while... just being us, before other people are privy to our personal lives... We'll figure out when the time is right... Or we'll let them figure it out. They are investigators, after all."
The End
A/N - As always, thank you for reading. And, an advance thank you for reviewing. This took me a while to get written. A lot of work and a little writer's block hit me. Luckily the writer's block was short-lived, but the work is still bogging me down.