February 20, 1998 and onward. San Francisco, California and Las Vegas, Nevada.
Sara Sidle hadn't really known what to do about keeping in touch with Gil Grissom, and Gil Grissom hadn't really known what to do about keeping in touch with Sara Sidle. What was the protocol? On Grissom's side, he still very much did not know what to think about his run-in (a term that hardly seemed to cover the time they'd spent together) with this young woman. Four days after he left her, Grissom was still reflecting on what to do about Sara when he got an email to his inbox; Sara, of course, had bitten the bullet.
Sara had included some pleasantries and some details of a case she'd just been working, and she asked him a couple questions. Even though he hadn't known what to do about Sara, it would be rude of him not to respond. So he did. From that point on, Sara and Grissom exchanged at a minimum several emails per week, almost entirely work-related, but, again, to them work was personal. Sara appreciated Grissom's puns and his willingness to answer her many questions, and Grissom appreciated Sara's insightful questions and her eagerness to learn; jokingly he still called her his star pupil.
Though it seemed they were going to have a nice memory of San Francisco, not an ongoing relationship, Sara still somewhat marveled that she was now in regular correspondence with this man. This man, in addition to being an eminent entomologist, was gentle, decent, and formidably intelligent; this man was kind, funny, profoundly knowledgeable, and generous with his time. This man had made her feel safe with him; this man, truth be told, made her feel quite a lot of things. (It didn't help that he was so terribly handsome.)
Sara had never met anyone like Grissom before. When they had discussed their work, they had seemed to operate implicitly on the same wavelength. Unlike men she encountered outside of work, he didn't find her intense interest in her profession morbid, and he wasn't put off by her eagerness and her many, many questions. If the promptness of his email responses was any indication, he seemed to welcome them.
For many months Sara and Grissom carried on like that, in regular correspondence, always by email and never by phone. Then one day Grissom got an interesting offer.
Grissom had a very specialized expertise, so he often received speaking requests, most of which he promptly discarded. This time, though, when he got an invitation to come to Berkeley to speak for a week, he held onto it. He made further inquiries. He considered it. Then he emailed Sara to find out whether she might be in town over the period.
Sara would be in town; of course, she would. Sara Sidle considered vacations overrated, so where else would she be? She even told Grissom he could come stay with her instead of at some boring hotel; she immediately kicked herself, realizing she'd overstepped.
Grissom knew staying with Sara was a truly terrible idea. He wanted to see Sara, but he didn't necessarily think they should do the things he knew they would if he stayed with her in her studio apartment. Really it was a truly horrible idea, and he knew he should by no means accept her offer. But of course he promptly did.
UP NEXT: NEXT CHAPTER: EARLY FALL 1998. SAN FRANCISCO AND THE COAST, CALIFORNIA.
A/N:
Thank you again for reading, and thank you so much for the kind reviews/favs/follows! Honestly, it quite literally makes my day to know anyone is reading and enjoying this. (I know I'm repeating myself, but I very much mean it.) 💛
