A/N: Keegan Elizabeth is more than just a beta: she's a kick-ass friend, she teaches me the in-and-outs of all those grammar bits I don't understand and she enlightens me on quotes. Thank you, hun :)
--
She squeezes her eyes shut and opens them, meeting his frantic and questioning gaze. Such blue eyes, she thinks to herself, such familiar blue eyes. His name is floating just out of reach, so close yet so far.
Blue, blue, blue.
"Say something," she says, griping his hand tighter. "Anything."
"We must always have old memories and young hope," he says softly, and her heart lifts as little bits of memory fall into place, flooding her mind.
His voice, his eyes, the quotes.
"Grissom."
He exhales, dropping his head on the side of her bed. He squeezes her palm that little bit harder, mumbling "Thank god," into her blanket. She smiles widely, dizzy with relief, even though it hurts.
I can't forget about him even if I wanted to.
--
Grissom hands her a mirror as another doctor stands by the foot of her bed, explaining her injuries as she winces internally at the harsh, black stitches across her cheek.
Two large brown eyes stare back at her, as well as a large bruise above her left eye and several tiny cuts all around her face. She winces, setting the mirror down.
I've definitely seen better days.
"Your right shoulder was injured badly, but you're lucky it didn't shatter. Your humerus is broken, though," he says, signally to the top part of her right arm, and she fights the urge to roll her eyes because nobody can miss that cast.
"Two of your middle ribs are fractured," he continues, and now she knows exactly why it hurts to breathe in deep, "and you have fifteen stitches on your cheek to close a deep gash. You also sustained a concussion, causing retrograde amnesia. What is the last thing you remember?"
She purses her lips, thinking back. "I left at the end of my shift after dropping off the evidence and finishing the report on the Lautner case. I drove straight home, opened the door to my apartment and woke up here."
"Dr. Grissom, do you know when this happened?"
"Approximately twelve hours ago," Grissom whispers, looking pale.
The doctor nods, making a tiny note on his clipboard. "We estimated beforehand that the severity of your concussion could cause eight to twelve hours of memory prior to the accident at most."
"So I might never remember how I got into this state?"
"Technically, yes. But certain things might be able to jog your memory, but you cannot push yourself too hard in recalling these events."
"Great," she says tiredly, her head starting to ache. "When can I leave?"
"Best case scenario is in one week's time," he says, turning to leave. "Get lots of sleep, Miss Sidle. Press '2' if you need any assistance."
"Thank you, Dr. Fielding," Grissom says, rising from her side for the first time to shake the doctor's hand.
She watches the doctor leave, and hears Grissom settle back down into the chair. He takes her hand in his with such ease it makes her smile lightly. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine," she says sleepily. "Aren't you needed at work?"
"They'll be fine."
"Mmm," she replies, closing her eyes. "Tell me about the accident, Grissom."
"Rest first, we can talk later."
"'Kays. You can leave if you want," she whispers, his hand impossibly warm in hers and as she drifts off to sleep, she hopes he doesn't.
"I don't want to leave," he says, minutes and minutes later, to the dark room.
--
The first thing she feels when she awakes to a brightly lit room is the absence of warmth in her right hand. She blinks, wishing the sun wasn't so bright, and turns to stare at her empty left hand. She continues to stare, wondering if she had managed to confuse reality with fantasy.
Is that a symptom of amnesia – fantasizing?
"Hey," someone says on her right, and she turns quickly to see Greg standing by the door with a smile on his face, looking a little pale. "Catherine forced Grissom to take a break. He'll be back in a few."
"Oh," she says, feeling her cheeks burn, hoping he doesn't notice.
He doesn't.
"Warrick and Nick wish they could be here, but we're tapped out. They send their regards, though, as well as Brass."
"Tell them I'm fine," she says with a smile, and Greg shakily returns it.
He walks over to the chair by her bed and sits down silently, and she bites her lip, unsure of what to say. This is uncharacteristically unlike Greg, and it's making her nervous.
"Don't die," he says bluntly, still looking down at his lap.
She opens her mouth to reassure him but as he lifts his eyes to meet hers, she realises he's in tears.
"I swear, Greg, I'm fine. I'm just a little freaked, I guess. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? I promise," she says, giving him the brightest smile she can muster, "that I'll do my best to ensure I don't die."
Greg nods seriously, and leans down to whisper in her ear. "Good, because who else will I be able to share my secret coffee stash with?"
She smiles, and his breath is sweet, tinged with something oddly familiar. She closes her eyes and inhales deeply, ignoring the pain in her chest as she allows the sickly sweet smell fill her senses.
Bubblegum.
Images swirl above her line of vision, just out of sight. All she can feel is the weird disjointed feeling of desperation, and as soon as she feels it, it is gone. She clenches her fist, frustrated, and opens her eyes to Greg's worried gaze.
"Are you in pain? Did I accidentally knock against you or something?"
"No…it's just, what kind of bubblegum did you eat last?"
"What?"
"Bubblegum, Greg."
"Right, um, Hubba Bubba's in original. You know, those—"
"Pink ones, yeah, I know."
Greg is looking at her with a look of slight confusion, and she decides to change the subject.
"Can you tell me about the accident?"
A cell phone goes off, and Greg straightens up to get it. She closes her eyes once more, taking advantage of the moment by trying to reach the memory. It makes her head ache, but it feels so, so close.
"I'm sorry, maybe another day. It's Catherine. She's waiting at the parking lot for me, but Grissom will be back soon. He went home for a shower. Get well soon, okay?"
She nods, disappointed. "Thanks for coming," she says, earning herself a bright smile from Greg as he leaves.
She stares out the window, watching the sun beaming down on the gated gardens.
Why doesn't anyone want to talk about the accident?
There are no answers, and all she can think about is the ache in her chest, the dull throbbing of her head and the heavy scent of bubblegum as she falls into an uneasy sleep.
--
She feels a familiar warmth in her hand as she wakes, warming her inside out, but before she can open her eyes, he starts to whisper, oblivious to her consciousness.
"Don't leave, Sara, please don't leave," he says, like a mantra. "Please don't leave."
He presses his face against her blanket, and after a few minutes, she realises he's crying.
Grissom.
Crying.
Those two words don't belong in the same sentence, but not because he didn't have emotions, but because he hid them better than anyone else. Grissom never lost control; he never loses control.
"Take it back, Sara. Take the letter back," he says into the blanket, his words muffled.
What letter?
She can feel everything spiral out of control as his tears stain the blanket and chill her arm. It's just too much, trying to piece everything had happened between those hours that have Grissom in tears by her bedside? She presses her eyes tighter, willing herself to remember.
Why doesn't anyone tell her about the accident? What does he mean by the letter? Why, of all things, bubblegum?
As she lies there in the dark, trying to control her emotions so her heart rate doesn't show a sudden increase on the screen, it occurs to her it doesn't feel like she had lost eight to twelve hours of her life.
It feels like she's losing her mind.
--
The whole team visits her two days after the accident, each one bearing gifts. Nick brings a huge bouquet of beautiful blue flowers, making her room smell of fragrant hydrangeas; Warrick offers her an iPod filled with his favourite music, Greg comes with a smuggled pack of Hubba Bubba bubblegum (original, of course) and Catherine drops a makeup bag filled with foundation, powder and concealer onto her bed.
"The stitches make you look like Frankenstein," she says pointedly, making Grissom scowl by her side. "Don't worry, the makeup is dermatologist tested, hypoallergenic and it fades scars."
Grissom doesn't buy flowers or balloons or cards, but it's fine with her because he's always by her side, clutching her hand in his. He's there when the doctors take her blood for the fifteenth time, squeezing her hand a little tighter, providing her with silent reassurance; he's there when she refuses adamantly to take the painkillers, arguing to the nurses that she can't think straight with them, and he rationalizes with the nurses.
He's the last thing she sees before she falls asleep and the first face she sees when she wakes.
She doesn't ask about the letter, but she does ask about the accident repeatedly, listening to variations of how she ended up here.
If she can't solve crimes because she's stuck in a bed, she'll do the next best thing: collect evidence in bits and pieces of information to solve the mysterious circumstances surrounding her accident.
"Talk me through the events leading up to the accident, Griss."
He groans, putting down the forensic journal he was reading to her. "We've been over this hundreds of times, Sara."
Just twice, she wants to say, but bites her tongue instead. She wants to shrug, but that ache in her shoulder reminds her against it. "Humour the patient."
"We were processing the Heron house – five dead bodies, two adults and three teenage children in Seven Hills. You arrived late to the scene, and I sent you off to take the evidence back to the lab. On your way back, you were involved in the accident. I'm so sorry, Sara, I shouldn't have sent you back."
"It's not your fault," she says, catching a glimpse of the guilt in his eyes. "Why did I arrive late?
"I don't know."
He looks away quickly to tuck the journal back into the carryall by his side and as he fiddles with the zipper, she frowns. Things feel…off.
As far as she can remember, she is never late to a crime scene. Okay, maybe once, but that was because of Hank and his keen interest in dates at far off places.
She shakes her head lightly, clearing it. She might have forgotten a pivotal moment in her life, but she certainly could not forget what it's like to be essentially her.
She is a workaholic, through and through, and would never arrive at a scene late if not for something important.
He's hiding something.
She bites her lip, searching carefully for the appropriate words. It's just like interrogating a suspect, and with one wrong slip, everything can go downhill. "How late was I?"
"Half an hour, I think," he says, straightening up, and before either one can speak, a nurse enters with a tray of vegetable soup and gelatine.
"Dinner," she says cheerfully, effectively ending the conversation cum impromptu interrogation. Grissom rises and she sneaks a peek at him while he helps the nurse assemble the table across her bed.
He looks… relieved.
--
"Sara," someone is saying softly, "Sara, wake up."
"Go away," she mumbles sleepily, shifting her body, trying to turn from the noise. There seems to be something hindering her movements, and all she gets is a sharp ache in her shoulder, causing her eyes to flare open.
A blurry person is standing before her, a blob of colour in hand. She blinks until everything comes into focus; Grissom standing with a bag in his hand, his hair adorably messy and clothes rumpled in the dim lights.
"I have to go – the sheriff demands my presence," he says with a sigh.
"Oh," she says, pushing herself up to a sitting position. There's a tiny pang of disappointment, but she shakes it off and smiles brightly. "Well, work is work."
"Yeah," he murmurs, but doesn't move.
"I'll be fine, Grissom." She gives him another bright smile, and her cheek starts to hurt from the strain. "Really."
He fidgets, hesitating for a few long seconds.
"What?"
Reaching over wordlessly, he bends down and kisses her chapped lips. It's warm and soft, everything she has imagined his lips to be like. He tastes like coffee, a beverage forbidden by the doctors for her to drink, and she sighs against his lips, content in more ways than one.
He pulls away minutes later, and for five long beeps of her heart monitor, they stare at each other, breathless.
"Always wanted to do it," he whispers, "didn't want to be too late."
She just stares at him, lightheaded, and the words can't seem to come as she absorbs his words in silence, her mind blissfully blank.
"I'll be back as soon as possible, honey," he says, jolting her back to the present, "try to get some more sleep."
With that, he places one last kiss on her forehead and disappears out the door, leaving her in the darkened room. She touches a finger to her tender lips and closes her eyes, breathing in and out deeply.
It will be so much easier to leave things as they are, to never recall the hours prior to the accident. So much easier to fall asleep with the taste of him on her lips with nothing but tomorrow on her mind. She'll never need to know what he's hiding, if there even is something he's hiding, and life can go on.
But there's another part of her that yearns for the answers because it's the one thing that has never failed to provide her comfort, ever since she was seven.
Either way, she knows that in the end, she can't have one if she has the other, and though she still falls asleep with the taste of him on her lips, instead of tomorrow on her mind, it lingers on the past she can't remember.
--
TBC
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A/N2: Arsène Houssaye quoted "We must always have old memories and young hope", and Hubba Bubba is a brand of bubblegum produced by Wrigley's.