Disclaimer: Nope, not mine. No silver has crossed my palm, either.
A/N: Thanks to jenbachand for the beta. Additional thanks to csishewolf, vrtrakowski and phdelicious for their support. Written for the BestKeptPrivate fic challenge. Prompt: Sara is sick and Grissom has to take care of her. Cross-posted at GeekFiction and BestKeptPrivate.
For my wedding, I will dress in black
And never again will I look back
Ah, my dark angels we must part
For I've made a sanctuary of my heart
For My Wedding / Larry John McNally
xxx
It started with an intention tremor. She was reaching for a glass of champagne at our engagement party when her hand started to shake. Startled, she'd pulled it back as if stung, flexing her fingers and wrist. I noticed her furrowed brow and handed her a glass of Cristal, "Everything okay?" Sara looked into my eyes and shrugged, taking the glass and kissing my cheek.
In the weeks leading up to the wedding she noticed her left leg was numb off and on. We'd been doing a lot of evidence collection: she thought it was a pinched nerve and blew it off. The night before the wedding she dropped her glass at dinner, spilling wine all over her dress. She was so embarrassed it didn't occur to her to wonder about the sudden weakness in her hand, but I did.
Our wedding was beautiful. Small and magical...that's how everyone described it later. Catherine had been instrumental in getting the venue and was in charge of décor. Brass was my best man and Doc Robbins walked Sara down the aisle. I wasn't nervous but they tell me I blushed when the justice of the peace said I could kiss the bride. We were on air, not really believing we were husband and wife.
It was during our first dance that Sara's left leg gave way. If I hadn't been holding her so tightly she would have fallen. I was about to tease her for being clumsy when I saw the look on her face. "Sara, what's wrong?"
"My leg is numb..." she said, shaken.
I helped her to a chair where feeling quickly returned to the leg. She said something about that pinched nerve that'd been bothering her lately. I studied her face and saw the fear beneath the embarrassment. "You need to see a doctor," I said. She would have none of it, however. This was our wedding day. She was fine, she said, and proved it by returning to the dance floor. I trailed after her, reluctant and worried. "You worry too much," she teased. "You don't worry enough," I thought before getting lost in the joy of her smile.
Our honeymoon in Bali was perfect for the first three weeks. Sara was a little more tired than usual, but we were packing a lot into those precious days. We settled into a routine of taking a nap in the afternoon. As this usually led to making love long into the evening, neither of us thought much about it. That was what honeymoons were for, after all.
Three days before our scheduled return to the states, we woke up to a wet bed. Sara had wet the bed.
That day was surreal. What adult knows how to react when their partner wets the bed? Sara was mortified and confused, then a little frightened. She pulled off her soiled clothes and stripped the bed, consumed by a need to do something. I watched her for a few minutes then grasped her shoulders and forced her to sit on the end of the bed.
"Sara...please...what's going on?"
She wouldn't look me in the eye, instead staring down at her twisting fingers, "I don't know! I don't know!"
When she finally did glance up, her left eye was shifting back and forth rapidly. Nystagmus. I took one look at her and said, "We have to get you to a hospital."
Our world was forever divided: before and after that day.
Diagnosis took quite some time. I figured it out long before the doctors were satisfied. MS...Multiple Sclerosis. When she finally fell asleep that day after the doctor left, his bad news still hanging in the air, I slipped out of her room, went to the conference room at the end of the hall and locked the door. That was the first time I cried.
Sara's official diagnosis is MS, relapse-remitting. She has periods when the disease is absent...months or weeks...and then symptoms reappear. These exacerbations might be minor, small manifestations that don't interfere too much with her functioning. It's the major ones we worry about. Paralysis, blindness...how long they last and whether they'll recede is always the big question. It's like living on the edge of a knife.
To say our lives were turned upside down is an understatement. Waiting for a diagnosis, trying different types of medication, learning to live with a chronic illness…we were used to crises at work. Suddenly, there was no peace anywhere. And we were newlyweds…we had to shake out the bugs in our relationship or give it up: there was no middle ground. The stakes were too high.
Sara had to learn to depend on people...me, our friends, her doctors. God, she hated that...fought it for a long time. Finally she came to understand dependency did not necessarily mean loss of control. Well, it did to a certain extent, but none of us were trying to take over her life. We just wanted to help.
I wanted to help too much. In the early days I did things like remind her not to overdo or insist she take a nap. She'd always pushed herself, but denying she was sick and wearing herself down to nothing was hard to watch. The more worried I was, the more I tried to protect her. She thought I was nagging her and I was, a little. It took awhile and some spectacular fights before I really understood she had to manage this in her own way. I backed off and now she lets me do what I can.
She felt guilty. Oh, not about being sick, but about getting sick so soon after our marriage. We had the same conversation several times that first year until I finally convinced her…we'd just made love and were curled together…my favorite time, really.
"This could have been so great," she sighed.
It took a minute for that to sink in. "What does that mean?"
She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. I knew what she meant.
"I hate being a burden to you…we just got married, for Christ's sake. Now you're saddled with me and my MS."
I didn't know what to say. I'd tried to reassure her many times, but she couldn't seem to hear me. She cuddled tightly against my chest – I knew she was crying, so I stroked her back until she was done. One thing she taught me was that I didn't have to try to fix everything. Sometimes just being is more help than doing.
Eventually she wiped her eyes on the sheet and looked back up at me. "Sorry."
"S'ok."
She got up a few minutes later and went into the bathroom. When she came back I said, "Did you know I'm 15 years older than you?"
That stopped her dead in her tracks. "Yeah…?"
"Well, you're stuck with this older man…things are all right now, but my knees aren't what they were and my cholesterol is a little high…"
She interrupted me, "You're not old, Gil."
"But 15 years is a lot. At some point, I'm going to fall behind, Sara."
I could tell she was getting annoyed because she didn't come back to bed. "What's this about?"
"I'm just being realistic. What if I have a stroke? I could die or worse, I could live."
When she put her hands on her hips, I knew she was mad. "Stop it!"
"Jesus, Sara…I was just thinking…what would you do?"
"I'd figure it out…we'd figure it out…"
"But it'd be awful…I mean, you'd have to change your whole life to deal with me…that's not fair. I'd hate that."
She finally walked around the bed and sat next to me. "I love you. The rest wouldn't matter."
I knew I had her. "I love you, too, Sara. The MS doesn't matter."
Both of us had to expand our social circle. I'd been solitary for so long, I really thought Sara would be enough. Under other circumstances I'm not sure I would have changed, but when someone you love has a disease like MS, you have to get away from each other now and then. I talked to Al Robbins a lot: at first just to get his medical opinion and then to pick his brain about living with a disability. Eventually we talked about our lives and our wives. He is a man of surprising insight and now, my good friend.
I thought Sara would turn to Nick or even Greg, but she chose Brass. Now that I think about it, it's not so strange. Jim gets to exercise his Dad muscles and Sara has the ear of someone who knows what a pain in the ass I can be. It works for her.
Work became an issue right away. I put a day bed in my office so she could nap when she needed to. People with MS have a hard time with heat, so her field work was dependent on the weather. I confess that wasn't hard for me…I wanted her safe and thought Lab duty was a good compromise. It damn near killed her. I watched her suffer for about six months before I decided to teach. She'd never have left of her own accord but I knew she'd follow me if I worked it right; we'd sort of talked about it before we got married. I'd been in the field for too long and wanted a change. I had offers. Whether she agreed to it for me or as a way to surrender gracefully, I don't know…it's the one thing we never talk about.
I've been teaching entomology and forensics at WLVU for a couple of years now. Sara teaches physics and co-teaches my senior forensics lab with me. We still consult at the Lab. Our schedules are much easier to manage these days…plenty of time for us and the MS. We both hate that we've had to put a disease on our schedules, but there it is.
Sara has even developed a bit of a sense of humor about it all. Last year it became obvious she was going to have to start using a cane because of the numbness on her left side. She refused. I couldn't figure it out until I realized it was vanity. For her, a cane was something other than an assistance device. Several falls in the gravel parking lot on campus changed her mind, but I knew she hated that thing. I went online looking for alternatives. There's this guy in Canada who carves walking sticks…elaborate and beautiful...so I did some research and commissioned a custom cane. She laughed for 10 minutes when she opened the box. Sara now uses a cane with a carved likeness of Neils Bohr on the handle. Inscribed on the shaft is her favorite Bohr quote: "There are some things so serious you have to laugh at them."
xxx
To want what I have
To take what I'm given with grace
For this I pray
On my wedding day
For My Wedding / Larry John McNally
FIN