Chapter Six: Moonlight Serenade

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Walking past the shops and businesses on the brightly lit street of Canary Wharf, Sara couldn't help thinking back to what had happened there. It was a reminder how every decision, big or small, could impact the whole world…

Gil's voice cut through her reverie. "You seem distracted."

"Sorry," she pulled her wrap a little tighter around her shoulders.

"Cold?"

She smiled over at him. "Not really." She slid her arm into his and they walked further, in comfortable, companionable silence. Her mind stopped wandering to other places and settled itself happily on her companion. On the way he made her feel. She realized she had forgiven him completely for what he'd said before, about relationships and atrophy.

"I'm glad you found a place that makes you happy, Sara," he said then, his tone a little hesitant.

She understood – or presumed she did. He was happy that she was happy but not happy that it meant she wasn't ever coming back. "I love my job," she said. "I'm not just sitting on the sidelines processing evidence. I actually get to do something for the victims," she needed him to understand that part at least. She wanted him to know that it was good work, something she was proud of, even if she couldn't talk about it. "It's not always as much as I want to be able to do," she added, honestly. "There are days when I scream at my boss…"

"You yell at your boss?" he blinked in surprise.

Sara chuckled. "Jack's not you. Or Catherine. He's definitely not Ecklie. Don't get me wrong, I respect him. We all do. But sometimes we yell at him. At each other."

Gil's frown deepened, but he made a point of listening to what she was saying. He wanted to understand what was going on in her life. He wanted to understand her. Maybe if he had tried just a little harder before… maybe if he had listened more… heard more… Sara was speaking:

"The job… any job… is stressful. If you don't have an outlet… a way to get it all out, it ends up festering inside," she found herself repeating what Jack had said to her after the first time she'd blown up at him.

When he called her into his office, about an hour after the argument, she was expecting a reprimand, a write up. Possibly even a little white pill. She had said a few things that were way out of line and she knew it.

Jack's anger was apparent on his face, but so was his understanding. In the end, he'd dragged it out of her that she'd been upset about a number of things, not all of them job related, but it had finally all come out in one big explosion… he made her promise to never do that again.

"If you need to yell at me, yell at me. I'm a big boy, I can take it."

She couldn't help the smile; she suspected that was his intent.

Only after he'd put her at ease did he ask Ianto to bring in the coffee so they could talk.

"Jack was my friend before he was my boss," she told Gil. It was the one thing the Captain had pointed out to her that had come as a surprise. He wanted her to think of him as her friend first… he was only her boss when they were in the field, when he needed to know she would follow his orders, no matter how difficult or disagreeable they were. Afterwards she could yell at him all she wanted and he wouldn't hold it against her. He reminded her that he'd been shot by one of his employees and Owen hadn't gotten the sack over it.

A few harsh words, said Jack, weren't the end of the world; they'd seen the end of the world, more than once. When he put it like that, he put it into prospective.

He put a lot of things into prospective.

Sara fished around her handbag for her phone.

Gil frowned.

She smiled. A moment later, Glen Miller was playing. "Jack sent this to me earlier." she explained. "He thought I was out with you, not Nick and Greg."

"Your boss likes Glen Miller?"

"My boss likes a lot of things," she couldn't help her smile.

………………………………………………………………

Looking up into those brown eyes… that beautiful face surrounded by loose brown curls… her smile… he loved her smile.

Sara leaned in and kissed him, long and hard, deepening the kiss, holding it. Her body pressed against his under the sheets… she moved gently. Gracefully. Sensually, drawing out the moment as if it were the last moment on earth and she wanted to linger over it. Revel in it.

"I have never fully understood what you see in me," Gil admitted when she finally eased away from him.

Sara's chuckle was soft. "I didn't always know either. I just know I love you. You… make me feel… grounded. Whole. Happy. When I left, I wasn't leaving you."

"I know. I'm not sure I realized it at the time… consciously of course I knew… but subconsciously…" he shrugged. He understood her need to find herself; it was a basic human desire, to know who one was, to be at some kind of peace with that knowledge. It hadn't made it hurt less, however, especially when all he found was a letter the first time she'd walked out on him. On them.

He had asked her to marry him. She had said yes.

"I wish you would have talked to me more," he said, carefully, unsure what sort of reaction the statement was going to garner. A year ago, he might have been able to predict her reactions, but this Sara – for all that she looked and sounded like his Sara – was different. She had grown. Changed. He wasn't sure he found it unappealing. She seemed more confident in herself. More at ease. Happier. It was good to see her happy.

She settled in next to him, curling up with her head on his chest before answering that she wished she would have, too.

He snugged his arm around her tighter. "You know I still want…" but the look on her face stilled the thought before it became a spoken statement. "I still love you," he said instead. She had made her position clear. She wasn't coming back. Not to Las Vegas. Not to the United States. If he wanted her…

"I will always love you, Gil. Always."

"Are you seeing anyone?"

She gave him a look. "Do you think I'd be in bed with you, if I was?"

He shrugged. "It would all depend on your arrangement, I suppose."

"How very twenty-first century of you, Gilbert," she teased him lightly. Then, in a more serious tone, she explained that no, she wasn't seeing anybody. "Not for lack of trying on Mickey's part," she added with a half-smile.

"Mickey?"

"Mickey Smith. He seemed to think since we were the only two single people at work we should – and I quote – 'hook up.'"

"Oh dear."

She chuckled that much harder, "Oh dear is right," she echoed. "He's a really sweet guy, but not at all my type." She leaned up and gave him another long, sensual kiss. The funny thing was that Mickey was more her type than the man who was in her bed at the moment, but there was no one else she would rather be with than this man here…

"Did Mr. Smith at least take the rejection gracefully?" Gil queried when their lips parted some moments later.

"We're friends. He was only half serious anyway, I think. Besides, life's too short to sweat stuff the little stuff."

He tilted his head slightly; she had said that life was too short a number of times over the course of the evening. Their walk. Coming back the hotel. Her room. Her bed… "Is everything all right?"

"Sure, why?"

He shook his head, deciding not to pursue it. "It's getting late. I should probably get back to my own room…"

"You could stay if you wanted," she suggested.

"Are you sure?"

"I wouldn't have asked it if I wasn't."

They didn't end up getting much sleep that night… or the next.

……………………………………………………………………….

Over the course of the next two days, Sara managed to attend a couple of talks, including Gil's lecture. She sat up front and noticed how his eyes kept coming to rest on her. It filled her with the same sense of warmth, peace, his gaze always had. She returned his smile, took notes… met him afterwards for lunch. He ordered salad again, but this time he actually ate it.

In between dutifully attending conference activities, she found time to spend with Greg and Nick, who, while they respected that Grissom was her main reason for being there, seemed to be enjoying her company more than she remembered. It wasn't that she hadn't considered them both friends, it was that she had so rarely socialized with her co-workers, even the ones she considered friends. When they had all worked together, at the end of her day she would clock out and go home. Read a book. Professional journal. Take herself to a movie.

She never would have regularly gone to the pub or bowling with her co-workers. She certainly wouldn't be scheming with one of them the way she was scheming with Mickey to organize a softball game for the team. If she and Gil hadn't started seeing each other, she wouldn't ever have found herself at his place as regularly as she found herself at Jack and Ianto's… and she and Gil had been friends long before they started seeing one another.

Nick was the one who finally nailed what was different about her when he observed that her walls had come down.

"Not all of them," Sara assured him. Just the same she agreed; it was impossible to live life, to really enjoy it, stuck behind a huge mental and emotional barricade.

…………………………………………………………………….

"You know," Gil observed quietly, as he stood with Sara in the hotel lobby waiting for her cab on Sunday afternoon. "You never asked me if I was seeing anybody."

"I know."

He fixed her with a perplexed look.

It earned him a sweet smile. "I know if you were, you wouldn't have ended up in my bed, Gil. You're not like that."

"I suppose not."

Understanding what he wanted her to ask, Sara obliged, even though she knew the answer. "Have you been dating?"

"No."

"I'm never coming back, Gil."

"I know."

"All right."

Outside, a cab pulled up.

"If… if you ever find yourself over here again… feel free to drop in on me," she told him with a warm smile.

He raised his brows, just a little, his smile a mirror of her own. "I may."

"I hope you do." She leaned in and gave him a long, lingering kiss good-bye… she'd already said her good-byes to Nick and Greg. It hadn't nearly as difficult to tell them good-bye as it was to say good-bye to Gil. "I will always, always love you, Dr. Gilbert Grissom," she whispered.

"I'll always love you too. With all my heart," he promised, meeting her gaze.

"I… I'm sorry…"

"Don't be. You're happy. I'm happy for you."

And if the mountain couldn't come to Mohamed, perhaps it was time for Mohamed make a few sacrifices and come to the mountain…