A/N: A short fluffy Christmas story...GSR, of course!
Christmas 2015
Chapter 1
Outside, the wind worried the palm fronds and the ocean breathed heavily bringing in the probability of rain to the mountains and fog to the coastline. Three blocks from the ocean, the unassuming house, set in one of the few residential areas that had not been bull-dozed for massive mansions, glowed with twinkle lights surrounding windows and lining deck railings.
The house was deceptive in size only because it was between two newer, larger houses. Two bedrooms upstairs opened onto a generous deck; downstairs, the kitchen-dining room and living room ran from garage to a porch with a third bedroom tucked to one side. Designed in a time when architects and builders considered light and shadows when building a house, the sun brightened every area of the house.
Today, clouds created shadows yet the lights around windows erased any possible gloomy corners. A warm tomato smell of soup infused the air as Sara Sidle leaned over a magazine page and studied the instructions for baking cookies.
This was her third attempt; the efforts of her baking skills were woefully bad yet she knew the entire process was physics and chemistry. She'd learned to cream the sugar and butter—no cream at all, just the name of the process. Each step had been a chemistry experiment but previous attempts had not resulted in a cookie worth eating.
In her efforts, she had followed the directions—butter, sugar, baking soda added at the right time, mixed correctly, but the rolling out and cutting the dough had resulted in something that resembled a sweet blob and tasted like a tough cracker. The cut out stars and trees were unrecognizable, spread into a sprocket and a triangle.
These cookies would be better, she thought, as she removed a small ball of dough and a cookie pan from the refrigerator. She'd read twenty online pages of directions and had—hopefully—figured out where she'd made mistakes.
The dough was chilled; the pan was cool. Rapidly, she rolled out the dough with quick, light strokes. Dipping the cookie cutter in flour and shaking it, she pressed the tree shaped cutter into the dough, lifted it gently and placed it on the cool pan. Four more trees, then four stars filled her cooking pan.
As she slid the pan into the oven, she realized she was holding her breath and laughed. Her husband did not care what a cookie looked like and he'd eat almost anything she placed before him. But in a rare reference to a grandmother, he'd mentioned her Christmas cookies with small red dots of icing on each tree shaped cookie.
Husband—she smiled. Baking cookies for her husband—the grin broke into a giggle.
Often, she found it hard to believe what a turn her life had taken; she'd wake up in the middle of the night and realize she was no longer in Vegas. She no longer went to work at the crime lab every day, no longer walked into an empty house and found it exactly as she'd left it. Life had changed.
The smile was still on her face as she flipped on the oven light, peering at the cookies. A satisfied sigh escaped her mouth; the cookies looked like trees and stars. The cold dough and cool pan worked, she thought.
A few minutes later, as she pulled the pan from the oven, she was pleased-perfect trees and recognizable stars. She could do this cookie thing.
Again, she laughed. She had learned she could do a lot of new things since September.
…Arriving at the boat dock in San Diego, she'd honestly thought the man she loved was living on a boat. Not a very large boat. The kitchen—the galley—consisted of one gas burner, a toaster oven, a two-shelf cooler, and a sink the size of a dinner plate. Below, the bed was a padded triangle tucked into the forward hull. Every other surface, was covered in books and sophisticated electronics.
It had been easy—in that small space, on the open deck, in tight living quarters over two nights and two days—to fall in love. No, she corrected her thoughts; they had always been in love. Being on a boat with no other people had brought them together again, caused each to recognize who and what was missing in life.
…Sara, watching her cookies cool, pressed her lips together and smiled. She smiled a lot now.
For two night and two days, as the boat sailed north, Gil Grissom physically loved her to the point of exhaustion. She'd been a willing participant—very willing. Surprisingly, enthusiastic—and their bodies had surprised them. By the time they arrived in Los Angeles, he'd told her about the house where his mother had lived for years, located an easy walk from where he docked the boat.
After docking the boat, they had taken a cab to the house because their legs—as well as other parts of their anatomy—felt like gelatin when they stepped on dry land. She had teased him about saving his energy but as soon as she'd stepped into the house, fatigue took over. A real shower and a wonderfully large bed with cool sheets had put her to sleep for hours. With fatigue fogging her brain, she barely remembered walking into the house.
Waking up, she had thought she'd dreamed until the unusual ache of sensitivity reminded her that she wasn't dreaming. She'd been so exhausted she had barely noticed anything in the house and, as wakefulness came, her mind had calculated correctly, it was late afternoon.
She had daydreamed long enough for the cookies to cool. Smiling, she clipped the end from a tube of red icing and carefully squeezed a dot on the end of her finger. Satisfied with its appearance, she placed several dots onto a cookie, glancing at the clock on the microwave before moving to the second cookie.
In a short time, she had decorated all the trees with red dots and used pale yellow frosting to run lines on the star-shaped cookies. Very cautiously, she placed the cookies on a platter—one she'd found in the bottom of a box marked 'Christmas'—and was certain the serving plate was at least as old as she was.
Pleased and happy with her results, she cleaned up the kitchen and turned on lights on their Christmas tree before running upstairs to change clothes, smiling as she stripped off her shirt before getting to the bedroom.
Gil Grissom had promised to stay away for two hours; she had ten minutes. Recently, he had become reliably punctual anytime he left the house without her.
A/N: Thank you for reading! We appreciate hearing from you-keeping GSR alive and active!