Rated: M
Summery: What does black panties, Catherine Willows, and a pool, have in common? Sara Sidle and Greg Sanders are about to find out.
A/N: Well, its finally here, the end of the story. I know, I know, it's sad, but all things must come to an end someday. I am not, prior to my past thoughts, going to make a sequel. I think that some things are best left alone, and this is one of them. I will though, soon be starting a new story, which one, I am not exactly sure but I will be posting a new Sandle story, maybe even start writing a Harry Potter (Remus/Hermione probably) too, I will be updating on my profile so keep a look out if you want to!
Disclaimer: Alright! I don't own CSI! There you got it out of me! If I did though, boy wouldn't that season finale went different . . . Chapter Sixteen: The Consequences of Swimming
Chapter Sixteen: The Consequences of Swimming
It was cold as the trees swayed along to the winds soft hum. The leaves danced above the ground, flipping spastically in the air. The gray sky suggested that a storm brewed in her mist, but she didn't much care about the storms anymore. She had learnt long ago to accept the nature of all things and people many, many years ago. Her long sandy blond hair blew wildly, flying about her face, which was now laced with the thin outline of starting crows feet grazed about her livid hazel eyes. She stepped out on the passenger's side of the large red van and waited for the small, mousy brunette girl to hope out of her seat.
A blond teen hopped out of the others side, dawning a black vest, long sleeve white shirt, bob and a 'artistic' black hat angled to the right. She waited as her husband, tall, lean and fit as ever to get out of the car and lace his callused hand in her own.
They moved slowly, the foursomes hands interlocked as the walked toward the large iron gate. She hadn't been here since, well that day. The day she didn't much care talking about to be honest. She hadn't really spoken of it since then, and ten years had already come and gone. So many memories had been forged in that amount of time, and her life had changed so drastically since it had been before everything started. But somehow, rather guiltily, she still questioned if it was for the better or worse.
She was no longer the happy, carefree person she used to be. Her death had taught her many things, after they both died and he had a near death episode himself, she found herself turning slightly colder, a bit safer than she had before. She had rarely gone back the old home, only to check on the renters once a month, nor did she ever go back to her old place in the library as well. Her things were boxed up and stored in the attic, where they had been their for teen years. The only evidence of her elders was one small picture frame sat beside her bed.
She stopped at the gate, a tearful gaze as she grasped the knob. The concrete slabs went for miles it seemed past the cold bars. It almost felt to surreal, it couldn't be, could it? She was still home wasn't she? Writing on her 'romance novel' and reminiscing in sweet memories. It seemed to unreal that she had died, that she truly didn't have anyone left to connect with her past.
Jose was now 13, finally reaching the teen angst years. With protests to 'express herself' through 'unique style' and wanting to wear makeup like 'all the other girls. Jose had known since Jordan and Diane married, two years after Jenny's death, that Diane was truly not her real mother, but had never acted as if she was otherwise. She had always said that she was the only mother she ever knew. She was sure her real mother was amazing, but the mother she had now she wouldn't trade for anyone in the world, because blood didn't make love or unbreakable bonds.
Almost ten months after their marriage they were graced with a beautiful girl they named Sara Jennifer Nickelson. She was the mirror image of her grandmother, having the same with and wisdom as Sara herself had once owned with the sarcastic humor and fun loving personality of Jordan and Diane's grandfather. She was now pregnant with their third child, suppose to be a boy and was due in three months. They were planning on naming him Gregory Richard Nickelson.
Even though those bonds were made, the bonds that had been broken still hurt. She supposed that they always would.
Closing her eyes, she clutched the small blue leather bound book in her hand and opened the gate and crossed the threshold.
The walk wasn't to far to the stone. In the middle of the cemetery, a gravestone decked with red roses and picture frames of loving memories that seem nothing more or less than distant dreams and legends now. She closed her eyes and knelt between the graves, touching the names softly as a tear went down her cheeks. She sat a new picture beside a old picture of the team on one of the boring nights at the lab. Sara was sitting in Greg's lap, a small bump on her tummy that was, who she assumed, to be her father, David Sanders.
She wiped of non-existent dirt of the frame of herself, Jordan, her father, and Jose surrounding a five old Sara who had just blown the candles out on her cake. She looked to the new photo she had brought. It had been an old photograph, once that she was but couldn't remember. Her grandfather was scene reflected in a mirror, looking ten years younger than his actual age, holding her stark naked after her daily bath as an infant. Another was one herself, Jenny, and Casey, her cousin, holding Papa's hand at an Easter egg hunt at the local church.
She propped up the leather bound book on her knees and flipped to the last chapter and looked to the grave.
"I finished the book for you Grandma, you would be really proud. People find your story just as amazing as I did. You really inspired people to never give up on love. I thought I might read this last chapter to you before I go."
She crossed her legs and she heard Jordan, Sara and Jose retreating in the distance as the explored, leaving her alone for a bit. She opened up her mouth and began to read softly from the book.
Some say that I should have taken credit for the story of my grandparents love, but quite the contrary I didn't have anything to do with it at all. Some might even question that I made it up, that it never really happen. I can reassure you all, that I am not the first to write about Greg and Sara Sanders. My grandparents, as well as their colleges were not only famous people in science, but also amazing people who inspired the people who knew them. That is why, as I write the last chapter of the book, I will recount the stories I have found by people who knew them best.
"I remember when I first met Sara, she was a disgruntle woman who wanted nothing more or less than to immerse herself in her work to get away from everything around her. It sounds bad, but it was the truth. She didn't want anything to do with anyone, and only conversed with our supervisor, Gil Grissom. They had known each other in the past, he had taught her. She seemed to be tolerant around others, but Greg seemed to crack her at the seems. At first, it seemed as if she wanted as far away from Greg as possible. But Greg was just the opposite, he was crazy about Sara from the moment he saw her. I wonder if she hadn't became his mentor if she would have ever seen how perfect Greg was for her."
"After Greg and Sara became close, Sara was like an entirely new person. He seemed to give her a life and spark inside of her that she never could have had before. They were perfect for each other, perfect soul mates, the perfect marriage."
"Greg used to make the worst attempts to woo Sara. While he could use smooth moves on any other woman in the lab, he seemed to turn to goo around her. A man, who graduated from Harvard at 20, with honors and Valedictorian no less, a complete genius, turned to mush around that woman, and only that woman."
"I remember when Diane was first born, Greggo paced the waiting from for five hours strait. I was scared he was going for the record to see how long it took him to make his legs fall off. He kept filming hour on hour, giving 'updates' on the birth. He about drove Sar' mad. But when she was born, he practically glowed. He filmed his first granddaughter with pride and ranted wildly about how beautiful she was and even got complete strangers reaction on film. Sara tried to calm him down, but he just couldn't, so eventually she just went along with him. Gone nutters, both of them."
People say, that true love never lasts. That true is just a mask that disappears after time, and once it is gone it all falls apart. And while that may be true in someway, I know the exception to the rule.
If true love ever lived it was with Greg and Sara Sidle.
Diane stopped, tears coming down her cheeks, and placed the book on edge of the stone.
Flashback
Sara blinked as the light flooded in her lids as she tried desperately to focus. A slightly numb pain began to throb at her thighs and her head was wet with a stick sweet. She began to move her legs, but her muscles screamed with a tense, hot, searing protest.
"Love? Poohbear you awake?" he asked softly clutching her palm.
She gave gentle squeeze back and shook her head tiredly.
"So did you mean what you said?" he asked.
"What did I say?"
"That you would chop my . . . off personally if I ever touched you again."
"Now," she laughed, "You know the answer to that."
He hung his head slightly with a pout. She leaned up slowly and took his lips before parting slightly and whispering against them, "I can't keep my hands off you for to long."
He took her lips heatedly, slipping his tongue into her hot mouth. He took his hands, running them up her front and she moaned as his simple touch. Her body screamed in pain but she could stop, he was just to much to let go.
"Now, isn't that what started this in the first place?" a voice sounded from the door.
Sara quickly parted her lips and gave a glance toward the door where her friends were crowding into the room. Moving over slowly, with the help of Greg, she made room for him to lay with her.
"Yes, but it is all worth it," they said in union.
"The consequences of swimming," Nick mused with a shake of his head.
The room burst out in a fit of giggles and Sara rested her head against Greg's chest.
"So when will the baby be in?"
"Soon I expect," Greg answered, "I suppose one of you could go tell the nurse she is up."
"I will," Mandy annoucned, holding her tummy slightly as she left the room.
"How is she doing?" Sara asked, watching her retreating figure.
"Pretty good," Nick sighed, "Dreadfully stubborn though. She hates having help, but it's getting to the point where it is hard for her to get around."
"I remember that, hurts like hell."
"The birth does too I expect."
"But its all worth it when you hold them in your arms," Catherine added.
"Then you want to go at it again I expect?" Greg said a twinge of hope in his voice.
"No, afraid not just yet. At least another year love."
"Who wants to see a baby?" asked a voice from the door.
They all looked to the door, where a short nurse wheeled in a crib and lifted out a small, boy who already had a thatch of brown hair on his head.
Sara wrapped her arms around him and her heart swelled with a foreign emotion that was almost to much for her too take. Tears of happiness swelled out of her eyes.
"So this is what it feels like . . ."
"What feels like?" he asked.
"To have everything you could ever want.If this is the conquences of swimming, then I would do it all over again."
"Thank, you Catherine," Greg whispered, wrapping his arms around the small boy.
"I didn't do anything Greg," she started happily, "I just gave you both a shove in the right direction."
"By Grandpa," Diane whispered to the silent grave.
Standing up, she brushed off the dirt and met Jordan near the stone, and with his arm wrapped tightly around her, they watched as Sara and Jose walked ahead of them.
"You okay Poohbear?" he asked.
"What did you just call me?" she asked.
"Poohbear, why? Do you not like it? I thought it was cute."
"No- no," Diane assured, "It's perfect."
A/N: Also, thank you to all the people who put The Consequences of Swimming and First Impressions on their alert, and or favorite list and reviewed for me. Without you, I wouldn't be able to write successfully!