DOWNPOUR
Chapter Three
Grissom and Sara get caught in the rain. GSR. M.
A/N That has to be the longest interval ever between a ringing telephone and an answer! It's been interesting getting your requests, then demands, then quavering, desperate pleas for an update…I think I've gotten more requests for this to be finished than any story before now. I know at least one of you is ready to thrash me for leaving you in suspense for…what is it, 2 years and 4 months! Do I have an excuse? Sure. Many. I've forgotten and changed my mind a dozen times on where I was going with the story, for one thing. If you take a wander over to CSI Forever Online (gotta plug that at every chance) you can see a big one, the 7,000 contributions and counting I've made there, which takes up a chunk of my free time. When this story was started the site was on wetpaint not wikifoundry, that's how long it's been. The CSIFO Facebook Group was a couple dozen of us—now it's almost 600 members and it's bustling with activity. It's been so long that my computer has gone through hiccups and reboots and a hard drive erasure and reinstall. So I couldn't even find a copy of the doc file…until I scrabbled through my floppy discs (yes I still use that arcane technology) and found my one last copy, and that was in Open Freely, a word processing software that apparently thinks quotation marks and contractions should be translated into gibberish. So after I found it I had to clean that up. And what is my impetus to finally get off my ass and finish this little tale? Calim11's Fan Fiction Challenge on Extreme Weather on CSIFO, which is due in oh, about an hour and a half. Extreme Weather, Downpour, seemed like a good excuse to git er done. I just have to add her prompts (can't change the opening line) and figure out the ending. And so, without much more blathering on…will someone answer the damn phone!
The phone rang again. The amorous pair flinched and stilled in place. Instead of happily tumbling into bed for some down and dirty sweaty sex, reality and duty had butted in. At the third ring, Grissom reluctantly let Sara's legs slide to the ground. Grumbling, they backtracked to their respective piles of sodden clothes. Sara found her cell phone insistently trilling and buzzing in a jacket pocket.
"Sidle." A heavy, despondent voice. So close!
"Sara!" a cheery, all too cheery voice responded. "What's cooking, good looking? " Sara rolled her eyes and cursed his timing in her head. Not now! She turned and mouthed Greg to Grissom.
"Greg, hey, I uh, I wasn't expecting you to call."
"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" he chirped, then launched into a monologue on everything that had happened (which wasn't much) since they'd seen each other last.
Still holding the phone, Sara tried to cover herself from the air conditioned drafts on her naked damp skin. Grissom found her a bath towel and awkwardly wrapped it around her, and she smiled at him. He found another for his waist and wandered off to the kitchen for a welcome mug of hot coffee. She half listened to Greg's rambling, saying "Uh huh?" and "Oh, really," at regular intervals. Outside there was the occasional clap of thunder and a steady pounding, beating rhythm of rain.
Sara gathered the soaking, dripping clothes one-handed and trekked back and forth putting them in her compact washing machine that was hidden in a closet. She added another half load of laundry that was piled next to it, poured in detergent, and cranked it to start. All the while keeping the slippery phone from squirting away from between her neck and shoulder. Meanwhile Greg was babbling on.
"It's too quiet without you and the bugman around, Sara, and I'm bored. Somebody left a copy of this book..was it you?...called One Hundred Years of Solitude so I've been reading that. Kinda freaky. This Colonel guy stays in his lab all day making little gold fishes and stringing them on necklaces. Sounds like he loses his marbles after a while. I can relate, you know, sitting in this lab all day—nobody to talk to. Just vials and microscopes and machines. No action. Nobody around. So anyway, where are you guys? Still out with that skeleton?"
"No, no, David packed up the bones and took them away a while ago. We looked for evidence—but there wasn't anything. Not a scrap. So with no evidence to bring back…we didn't hurry. I'm not coming back in just to clock out. And," Sara briefly considered whether or not to tell the truth or make up a story. "And it started raining. I mean, pouring down. And we got caught in the downpour!" She chuckled and Greg joined in. Grissom smirked at her from the kitchen island. "We were both soaked."
"You and Grissom?"
"Yes, Greg."
"So…." He trailed off suggestively.
Sara rolled her eyes again. "He dropped me off here, at my apartment. I'm getting some dry clothes."
"Uh huh." She could almost see him waggling his eyebrows. "And is Grissom helping you out of your wet clothes?"
"Hanging up now, Gregory."
"But…"
"Bye, Greg."
Sara snapped the phone shut and tossed it. She joined Grissom in the kitchen and pouted. He smirked at her expression and nudged her in a friendly way. Sara looked up at him through her hair and tried to figure out his mood. And what to do next.
"Uh."
"Um, can I get you anything? Hot soup, maybe?"
"Soup? Not right now thanks. Good coffee. Want some?" He poured her a cup. They sipped, each lost in thought.
"So that was Greg," Grissom said.
"Yes."
"And he knows we got caught in the rain and stopped here." She nodded at him. "Nicely handled, Miss Sidle, you told the truth just up to the point where it…"
"Where it was nobody's business," she supplied, her expression brightening.
"Right."
"Gris? Uh, since we don't have to go back to the lab, or to a scene, and shift ends…" she glanced at the clock over his shoulder "…in half an hour. What happens now?"
He nodded inscrutably. Opened his mouth and then snapped it shut.
Sara sighed tiredly. Back to the goldfish impersonation. She took a deep drink of coffee, gathered her thoughts, and gathered her courage once again.
"If that phone hadn't rung…if Greg wasn't so ADD that he can't keep himself occupied for a few hours," she grumbled, "we would be happily romping in bed right now."
Grissom raised an eyebrow and then nodded, his eyes, like hers, showing disappointment.
"I think you and I…" she bravely stroked his arm. "You and I are good together. I think we…" She let her fingers trail down to his hand and play with it. She curled and uncurled his fingers and stroked his palm. He sucked in a breath at her gentle touch and she did it again, cataloguing his reaction. "Earlier you said…"
"Yes?" he said huskily.
"You said you wanted to fix this, whatever it is, between us."
He nodded.
"Do you? I mean, do you still want to…make this right?"
"I do. Before we were so…rudely interrupted, I thought we made some progress."
Sara grinned at him. She let her fingers walk up his arm and tickle his neck and he shivered. He grabbed her around the waist impulsively and they kissed. Still not feeling the headlong passion of earlier, Sara broke away, smiling shyly. She found her remote and turned on the sound system, clicking through selections before letting a chosen one play. The sounds of guitars and hand drums and quiet singing helped smooth the awkward silences.
Grissom came up behind her and held her gently, lightly, to his body. His head dropped into the hollow of her neck and he kissed it softly, making her shiver and lean back into his arms.
"What's this?" he mumbled into her skin. "Who's playing?"
"Blackbird Sunset," she replied. "The Romantic."
"Nice." They swayed a little, loosening up. Grissom kissed up to her ear and then leaned his head to the other side and kissed and licked her sensitive neck. He let his fingers trail along the edge of her towel and she reached behind and stroked his curly hair. Another song started and Sara turned in Grissom's arms and kissed his lips sweetly. He held her head tenderly and returned it, deepening it slowly and steadily. The temperature rose. Sara could feel her nerve endings sizzling. She felt blissful and excited. Grissom continued to kiss her, feeling confident, feeling tremendously alive and grateful and wanting more.
With little effort, he untucked Sara's towel and let it drop. Reverently he stroked her silky skin, exploring her body and gazing at her. Sara let her hands run over the muscles of his back and shoulders, over his smooth chest, touching and exploring in turn. When she was nude again she removed his towel as well. She dipped her hand and felt his erection, felt it jump at the first contact. Grissom was stroking her breasts and squeezing them. Sara grasped his erection and stroked it languidly, exploring the sensitive head with her fingertips. Grissom thrust his hips involuntarily and groaned. He pulled her hands away and gripped them apart, so they could see each other completely, exposed, but not afraid. He backed up and she followed, up the hall and back into the bedroom, looking into each other's eyes with love and desire.
"Will you be mine, Sara?" he said almost giddily.
"As long as you'll have me," she answered, grinning wickedly.
They tumbled into bed again. And this time there were no interruptions.
THE END
